The Right Moment
by The Eclectic Bookworm
Summary: When the Doctor gets a second chance with Rose courtesy of a mysterious alien, he decides to wait until the right moment to tell her how he feels about her. But a right moment is difficult to come by when one travels in the TARDIS, and the moments after are uncharted territory. He loves her and she loves him-what could go wrong? Anything and everything, that's what.
1. A pushy alien

**Just a little tidbit before we begin-this takes place right after The Runaway Bride, when the Doctor takes off into space. It's very AU, so be prepared.**

* * *

The Doctor took off, hammering different buttons in a random fury and making the TARDIS rise into the sky, away from Donna, away from Earth. He wasn't quite sure where he was taking it, but he knew that he needed some time to grieve.

Rose wasn't dead, he knew. She was safe. She was happy.

_But maybe she would have been happier if I had told her how I felt._

The Doctor swore softly and sunk down into a chair, letting the TARDIS drift in space. He wished ever so much that he had had the opportunity to tell her, because he knew that sooner or later he would regenerate and lose all of the emotions associated with his memories of Rose.

The only reason that the feelings he'd held for Rose had lasted longer than others was that he'd had her _there,_ right beside him, and with her charm and her wit and her intelligence it was hard for him to not be attracted to such a sweet and wonderful Rose. Even now he couldn't think of it as love, because if he identified it as such then the pain would be doubled and tripled. Just another human that he'd grown to love and had to lose.

Rose would become just another memory, instead of the vividly alive girl that he had known.

He clenched his hands into fists so hard that he drew blood, and gave a little gasp of pain. For a moment, the pain carried him away from the world and he forgot of Rose, only of the red blood leaking from his hands. And then he sighed, and stood up, and wiped his hands on his trench coat.

**You'll stain it, you know.**

The Doctor glanced around, and seeing no one he assumed that he had imagined the voice.

**I _said_, you're going to stain that perfectly lovely coat of yours.**

The Doctor blinked rather incredulously, and whispered, "Who's there?"

**Beside the point.**

"You're on my ship. Not physically, I know, but you've sent your mind onto my ship. And you're trespassing. How is asking who you are beside the point?"

**Well. Ah. Never did have your gift for words, Doctor, so suffice it to say that it's information that you don't need and shouldn't have.**

"So you know who I am. Have I ever met you before?" The ache of missing Rose was still potent, but it helped to be distracted by the whole _mysterious and powerful voice on the TARDIS_ thing.

**Yeah, you've met me, and you'll probably meet me again.**

"You don't sound familiar. And it takes a lot of power to send one's mind onto the TARDIS, so you would be...one of the most powerful people I know. But you don't sound familiar." The Doctor stared up at the ceiling with accusing eyes.

**Doctor, for the love of-IT'S BESIDE THE POINT WHO I AM, OKAY?**

"Don't yell, mysterious voice!" said the Doctor angrily. "This is my ship, and I am rather busy right now, thanks. What're you here for, anyway? World domination?"

**Nah. I'd make a terrible world leader. I'm here to give you a second chance.**

The Doctor looked up, surprised. "Do you mean-" he began, his voice barely a whisper, but the telepathic voice cut him off sadly.

**There's nothing I can do about the Time War, Doctor. I'm sorry. My power right now is limited, and the most I can do is give you a second chance with-um-with Rose Tyler.**

"Rose," said the Doctor, sinking back into the chair and staring at his bloody hands. "How? Just going to waltz into the parallel universe and bring her back?"

**That's impossible.**

"So why give me false hope, then?" snapped the Doctor. "Why the hell would you do that? I just lost her-is this some sort of sick alien joke?"

**No. Getting her back from the parallel world's impossible. But a second chance isn't. My god, Doctor, you are _so_ impatient sometimes.**

"Oi! I will not be talked to like that by a pushy alien I've never met!"

To his surprise, the Doctor heard the voice giggle, which was actually quite surprising. "A giggle," he snorted. "Never heard any alien giggle ."

**S-sorry. J-just something you said. Anyway, what I'm saying is that I can bring Rose to you.**

"What, and scare her mum and dad half to death? Without any explanation?"

**It would be as if she had never entered the parallel universe.**

"Sorry?"

**Hmm. How do I explain this? Okay, think of it this way. Rose never let go of the lever, she hung on, you and her are in the TARDIS together after she said goodbye to her parents for the last time, and right after you two left Donna.**

"There's a catch," muttered the Doctor. "There's always a catch."

**No catch. Doctor, what've you got to lose? **

"I don't get it. Why are you offering me this?"

**I can't actually tell you that. Do you want it or not?**

The Doctor opened his mouth to tell the voice "Hell no," to go about his merry way across the galaxies. But then his breath caught in his throat as he imagined being able to change things, to see Rose, to hold her in one of those hugs that he'd always taken for granted. To watch her smile with that little poke of her tongue the way she always did. And-if he played his cards right-to _kiss_ her.

"God, do I want it," he breathed.

**All right then. Big important rule, though. No telling Rose.**

"I _do_ happen to be a fairly experienced time traveler, so I know at least that much," the Doctor replied coolly.

**And Doctor?**

"Yeah?" Hope was ballooning inside of him.

**You'll succeed. I'm sure of it.**

* * *

And then the world was white light for a moment, and when the light cleared the Doctor blinked like an owl for a few seconds before regaining his sense of sight. He glanced around the TARDIS. No sign of Rose. Except- wait a minute-her hoodie was hanging on the coat rack, as if she'd raced to her room in a hurry, like she usually did when she was tired out.

The Doctor hurried down the corridor of the TARDIS to Rose's room, where the door was shut. But that could mean anything, because he'd shut it right before he'd tried to find a hole in the fabric of the parallel universe. Because he couldn't bear to look at her little trinkets and her unmade bed. Because when he looked at it he thought that she might come back, and he had known in his heart that she never would.

He knocked hesitantly on the door.

No answer.

He reluctantly opened the door, not wanting to get his hopes dashed again.

Rose lay sprawled on the bed, evidently too tired to change into pajamas, staring up at the ceiling. At the sound of the opened door, she sat up, yawned, and commented sleepily, "Doctor, you have blood on your coat."

* * *

**Oh-kay... Awfully nervous about this, but I'm going to start it and hope it turns out reasonably all right. Ten/Rose is my OTP for Doctor Who, and I'm nervous that it won't turn out that good in writing. Drop a review and tell me what you think?**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	2. Eating bagels in the TARDIS

The Doctor glanced down at his coat as if he had never seen it before, and then he walked very slowly over to Rose's bed and replied with his usual eloquence (or at least he hoped), "Yeah. Blood. Coat. Okay."

Okay, maybe not his _usual _eloquence.

Rose smiled slightly. "You tired? TARDIS drifting? Go to sleep, it's-um-"

"One in the morning?" suggested the Doctor jerkily, glancing towards the clock on Rose's dresser.

"Yeah. That. Here." Rose got out of bed and took off the Doctor's coat, grinning slightly when she saw that he was blushing a bit. "You all right? Slept at all? Why don't we stop in London and wash your coat at a laundromat or something?"

The Doctor nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on hers.

"Come on." Rose hung the coat over her chair and sat down on her bed. "Go to bed, Doctor. I completely forgot to get changed what with all the trying-to-save-Donna thing today. D'you mind?"

"Can I stay in here?" asked the Doctor a bit apprehensively, not wanting to leave Rose even for a second. Maybe it was because he was tired and maybe it was because he had missed her, seeing as they hadn't been separated for that long ever since she stepped into the TARDIS, but he was desperately afraid that if he looked away he would lose her again.

Rose's eyes widened slightly. "What? Y-you mean..._here _here?"

"Yeah," replied the Doctor. "I'll sleep in your chair."

Rose shrugged. "Works for me, this way I don't have to change and I can just go to sleep. Can't change with you in the room, can I?"

"Oh, no, never mind, if it's too-" began the Doctor with no ending to the sentence in mind at all, but thankfully Rose cut him off.

"It's _fine, _Doctor, you seem to be in a bit of a state, and I don't want you clattering about the TARDIS and finding something new and interesting, which you'll start to build and then wake me up with by accident."

The Doctor grinned. "Right! Good! I'll just-Oi! I do not _clatter about!_"

Rose waved her hand both dismissively and tiredly before collapsing back onto her bed. The Doctor looked at her tenderly for a moment before sitting down in Rose's very comfortable armchair. He'd found it at a yard sale on Raxacoricofallapatorius, and although it was a strange shade of reddish brown and it was sort of like sitting in a soft spiraled seashell, it was cheap and Rose adored it.

About two minutes later the only sounds in the room were Rose's soft snores and the Doctor's nearly inaudible breaths, both of them fast asleep, the Doctor with an exhilarated smile on his face.

* * *

He woke up at about nine in the morning. Not of his own volition, of course, because if it was of his own volition he'd probably have slept for a lot longer. No, this was because Rose was shaking him awake, her hands on his shoulders and a slightly annoyed expression on her face.

"Oi! Doctor! D'you mind waking up! I can't find the kitchen, I had to change my clothes in your wardrobe room seeing as you're in here and I didn't want you waking up while I'm dressing and-erm-seeing me-" The Doctor decided to avoid hearing the end of that sentence by jerking awake and blinking sleepily up at her. Rose looked relieved.

He yawned. "Whadizit?"

"Is there anything to eat on this ship?" replied Rose promptly. "The TARDIS got me lost."

"Yeah, she does that sometimes," said the Doctor sleepily. "Come on. I'll take you to the kitchen. I think I know where it is. I think. I should've slept more."

Rose smiled. "Getting up any time soon? I'm starving."

"Sorry," said the Doctor sheepishly, and then, "But I thought you knew where the kitchen was!"

"I did! The TARDIS is being impossible."

"Ah, yes," teased the Doctor. "Always the TARDIS' fault and never your fault."

Somehow it didn't seem as real now that he'd slept it off, Rose being lost for those hellish months. Somehow it seemed like a dream now that she was here and smiling playfully down at him. But then he remembered that feeling of horrible grief the moment before Donna had appeared, grief that had clawed at his heart, grief because he had lost the woman that he-

Instead of finishing the unsaid sentence, the Doctor stood up and pulled Rose into his arms, reveling in the feeling of her so close to him again. Rose gave a startled little gasp before resting her chin on his shoulder, and the Doctor grinned widely, happily, because she just sort of _fit _there, until Rose pulled away and said cheerfully, "Right. Good morning to you too. Now can we go down to the kitchen?"

"Up," corrected the Doctor. "Up to the kitchen."

"Is it _up _now? Yesterday it was down."

"Oh, hang on, it _might _be down. Damn it. I don't know. Let's check upstairs first."

* * *

Checking upstairs proved to be a failure. The kitchen had moved _again _in the short time Rose had been attempting to rouse the Doctor, and Rose complained about this for most of the time they spent walking around the TARDIS while the Doctor held her hand very tightly and grinned like an idiot.

"It's not fair of the TARDIS to-_ouch, _could you loosen your grip a bit? Thanks. Anyway, it's not fair of the TARDIS to move around a vital room, seeing as I am _starving _and I feel like I deserve something delicious. Like a poppy seed bagel. With cream cheese. D'you have cream cheese? I forget if we went grocery shopping for cream cheese. We _have _been on the TARDIS for three months, trying to find a hole in the repaired breach, so I guess I've probably eaten all of the cream cheese by now. This'll be annoying. Is the toaster working, or did you take it apart again?"

"Hold on, that's unfair!" said the Doctor, annoyed but still smiling widely. "I _told _you, it was a scientific experiment!"

Rose smirked up at him, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. "Oh really? Then why did you spend the rest of the day etching a drawing into the wall of the TARDIS with a wire from the toaster? I would've thought that the wire would be an important part of your _experiment, _Doctor."

"It-I-there were extra wires!"_  
_

"Right. Extra wires. You do realize that the toaster doesn't pop anymore and you have to do it manually, right? Last time all I had for breakfast was a piece of charcoal shaped like bread."

The Doctor laughed. "I surrender. We should probably pop in to London and get a new toaster while we wash my coat."

"You mean while _you _wash your coat. I'm not trusting you to buy a toaster."

"Why not?"

"Because you always get the one that you think looks the most interesting!"

"Ah. True. By the way, how do you work a washing machine?" The Doctor knew, of course, but he really didn't want to leave Rose. Knowing their luck, if they split up, there would be some sort of alien invasion and he and Rose would get caught in the mix.

Or that's what he was telling himself, anyway.

Rose groaned. _"Fine._ I'll chaperone you."

"_You'll _chaperone me? If anything, _I'll _be chaperoning y-Oh look, there's the kitchen!"

Rose let go of the Doctor's hand and hurried into the TARDIS kitchen, opening the refrigerator door and bending down to take out a banana and a package of bagels. "I'm really hungry. Do we have any cream cheese?"

"You already asked that. Let me see." The Doctor walked over to the refrigerator and scanned the contents. "Hang on-you reorganized it!"

"Yeah, I think it was yesterday, remember?" Rose was looking slightly amused now. "Yesterday-that was the day you went out to eat and I stayed home-I mean, I stayed _here _so I could reorganize. You _did _say it was all right."

"Yeah, sorry, it just sort of makes it difficult to find cream cheese," replied the Doctor. "Ah-there it is! Ooh, and Rose, is that a banana on the table? D'you mind if I eat the banana? Or were you planning to-"

"It's fine!" giggled Rose. "I got it out for you anyway."

"Aah, thanks. Here, I'll cut it up, and you can make us bagels. And I'll pour us some juice or milk or something of the sort. We're going to have a nice breakfast, Rose Tyler, how does that sound?"

"Sounds like what we usually do every morning," responded Rose. "I mean, usually we get up at different times, but still. I'm no stranger to nice breakfasts."

"That's the spirit!" said the Doctor happily, and took out a knife from the knife holder to cut the banana with.

However, he had literally no experience with slicing things. He'd never been that much of a cook, as when one is running for one's life most of the time it's simpler to buy snacks and microwave meals. So when the Doctor tried to slice the banana, he ended up cutting his hand instead.

Rose gasped and dropped the package of bagels on the floor. "Oh my god, you're bleeding! Here, let me get a napkin-"

"Not one of the cloth ones, if you don't mind!" replied the Doctor through gritted teeth. "Takes _ages _to wash out the stain."

"Doctor, you're bleeding. The last thing I care about is which napkin I get for you." Rose hurried to him, holding a paper napkin in one hand, and gently wrapped it around the Doctor's hand. "There. I'll slice your banana, yeah?"

"Yeah, sorry. I'll pour us some juice, like I said earlier, yeah, okay, would you like orange or apple?"

"Ooh, let's have apple," replied Rose eagerly, letting go of the Doctor's hand and hurrying to spread cream cheese on his bagel.

* * *

The Doctor talked to Rose over bagels and apple juice. He'd missed her sorely, and so he talked to her eagerly.

"I never asked," he said cheerfully, "what do you think is your favorite-"

"Chips," replied Rose promptly.

"I don't mean _food, _Rose, I mean your favorite-"

"Pink."

"Not color."

"Sunny."

"Not weather."

"Raxacoricofallapatorius," said Rose proudly.

"What the hell would that be your favorite _anything _for?" demanded the Doctor happily.

"Planet name."

The Doctor leaned across the table, almost spontaneously kissing Rose on the mouth just because of that adorable smile on her face, but instead he wiped a smear of cream cheese off her cheek when his nerves got the better of him. "That was getting a bit annoying, sorry."

Rose had a furious blush on her face, but she managed to squeak out, "Okay, so finish your question."

"What is your favorite song?"

Rose smiled a little dreamily, and then she replied, "Moonlight Serenade."

_Damnit, is she in love with Jack? _"Why, exactly?"

"Because that was the day that everyone lived, and that was also the day that you proved to me that you couldn't dance at all."

The Doctor grinned broadly, because that was the reason that he had least expected, not to mention it involved Rose connecting him with his other incarnation. Few humans he had met ever did something as wonderful and wise as that, even if it had taken Rose a little bit to figure it out. "Yeah. You know, I think that would be my favorite song too."

Rose blushed and took a bite of her bagel. "That's really, really lovely."

And the Doctor decided not to tell her how he felt about her quite yet. Because he was going to have the perfect setting and the perfect timing and the perfect _everything, _and eating bagels in the TARDIS didn't seem nearly romantic enough.

* * *

**Reviews?**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	3. Jack-Mickey TARDIS Toaster

**Thank you all for reading, following, favoriting, and reviewing!**

* * *

"So. Washing machine. Can I go-"

"No. We wash your coat first, and then we go and get a toaster. And you aren't taking it apart this time." Rose glared up at the Doctor with adorable seriousness.

"You can't really expect me to stand here and watch the coat go round? That's _boring,_" groaned the Doctor, pulling a face.

"Pfft," Rose snorted. "I thought you liked that coat. You have to have perseverance. You can't just decide that you don't want to wash out the blood from your coat." Rose crossed her arms and frowned thoughtfully. "By the way, I never did ask. How'd that blood get on your coat?"

They were standing in front of a large washing machine, both of them watching the Doctor's coat swirl about with impatience. Toaster buying strangely appealed to both the Doctor and Rose, but thanks to Rose's insistence on getting the boring thing done first the two were stuck holding hands in front of a washing machine. The holding hands part was mostly because the Doctor still wasn't letting go of Rose's hand. Even though his hand was bandaged heavily. He was still under the impression that if he let go of her she would disappear, but he was starting to feel used to having her back.

"Clenched my fists too tight," replied the Doctor nonchalantly. "It's nothing, really. Just hurt a bit."

"You clenched your fists really tightly, then," Rose told him worriedly. "And then cutting yourself with the knife...accident magnet, you are."

"Says the girl who wanders off into trouble _every single time _I tell her not to," muttered the Doctor with an eye roll.

Rose rolled her eyes back, and then suddenly added, "We should take your coat out now and put it in the dryer, so that it isn't completely soaked."

"No," said the Doctor firmly. "Last time I used a dryer I ended up setting an entire laundromat on fire (thankfully, it was deserted), and this is a very special coat."

Rose started to laugh hysterically.

"What?" demanded an indignant Doctor.

"Y-you...dryer...fire..._idiot!_" wheezed Rose between laughs._  
_

"Oi! It's perfectly reasonable and sane to set a laundromat on fire if it's an accident!" said the Doctor, waving his hands dramatically and accidentally waving Rose's hand along with his.

"Oh, y-yeah, it's sane if it's an accident," Rose forced out before going back into uncontrollable giggles.

The Doctor let go of Rose's hand (she stopped laughing) and opened the washing machine, looking nervously at his soaking wet coat. It had soaked in so much water that it was dripping onto his shoes.

"Do you have any sort of plan for how we're going to dry it out?" asked Rose. "We can't lug around a wet coat all day."

"So we just take it back to the TARDIS," the Doctor replied easily. "Problem solved!"

"Oh, Doctor, don't say that, don't even _think_ that," groaned Rose. "When you say things like that, you're just asking for it."

"You're probably right," admitted the Doctor. "But really-the TARDIS is only six blocks away!"

* * *

Rose sighed. "You're mental. Parking the TARDIS six blocks away-"

"You said that the laundry place was on those cross streets, so I went to those cross streets," the Doctor said with a hint of annoyance, "and so technically _you_ should have gotten the directions right."

"Don't blame me-"

"I can blame whoever I want, because _I _am the one carrying the wet coat," replied the Doctor smugly. "That's my trump card-"

"Pretty poor trump card if you ask me," snorted Rose. "You're carrying a wet coat because _you _didn't want to use a dryer like a normal person."

"Where did you get the impression that I'm in any way normal?" said the Doctor promptly.

"Touche."

"Rose! Rose!" The Doctor dropped the coat on the ground and hastily picked it up again, his eyes fixed on a cafe on the end of the block. "The Banana Split- we _have _to go in there _now!_"

"We're putting the coat in the TARDIS and then we're getting a toaster," Rose reminded him gently. "I don't think we're on a tight schedule though, so maybe we could stop there later for lunch, okay?"

"Fine," muttered the Doctor reluctantly, clutching the wet coat to his chest. And then, "Two more blocks and we reach the TARDIS!"

"You're going to be soaked," sighed Rose. "Isn't there a more efficient way of carrying a wet coat than holding it like a bundle?"

"Yes, but this is _my coat,_" replied the Doctor promptly. "I don't want anyone running off with it."

"Who would want a wet coat?" asked Rose with a small smirk. "If I was a pickpocket or a robber or whatever, I wouldn't want to steal from any mental bloke with a wet coat."

"You know you want it," teased the Doctor, waving the coat about and causing a few drops to fly into Rose's face and hair. She gave a little scream and made a grab for the coat, but the Doctor held it away, shouting, "Help! I'm being robbed by a mental girl with a love of wet coats!"

Rose was laughing very hard now, and the Doctor was grinning fit to burst-

-until she managed to grab hold of his coat and the Doctor accidentally pulled her closer.

Both of their smiles dissolved. The world seemed to freeze as Rose's eyes met the Doctor's, as her hands moved towards his and rested on top of them on the bundle, as they drew a bit closer-

The Doctor dropped the coat and stumbled backwards, tripping over his own feet and hitting his head against a pole. Rose gasped softly and grabbed the front of his suit, but she couldn't pull him up to a standing position and ended up falling against his chest instead. They jumped apart, and a mumbled "Sorry" from each of them seemed to be all that was needed.

They walked for a block in awkward silence before Rose started chattering about Easter eggs when she saw an Easter display in a shop window and the Doctor joined in, relieved and glad that they hadn't had to discuss things right there and then.

_Not quite yet._

"There's the TARDIS!" Rose raced ahead, grabbing the Doctor's hand and towing him along.

* * *

"Oooh, Rose, look, a karaoke machine! You can't tell me that you've never wondered how one of these things worked, because that is simply not true. I mean, look at the complexities! Maybe we could take it apart and build something for the TARDIS-"

"Doctor," replied Rose patiently, "Home Appliances is this way."

"Rose, look at those nice curtains! Don't you think we need curtains for the TARDIS? I saw flowers like that back in New New New New New New... New New New New New New..." The Doctor hastily counted on his fingers before concluding, "New New New York."

"Doctor, Home Appliances is this way. Turn away from the curtains."

"Rose, look! A gun that shoots foam darts! We could use this against aliens! They wouldn't know it to be a toy, and-"

Rose, losing patience with the Doctor, grabbed his hand and towed him to Home Appliances, ignoring him pointing out every single object along the way. Including, but not limited to, shower curtain rings, a rubber duck ("Trust me on this, Rose, we _need _one."), a onesie for a toddler, ("It would make a brilliant gift for an unexpected baby shower! No, I don't know who would be having a baby, but then we'd have a backup gift.") and earplugs. ("You magnificent humans! You're the only living beings I've met that have invented something to stuff your ears with! You'd think they would be more commonplace, but most civilizations are too focused on technology.")

"Okay, we're here," she finally said with relief. "Which toaster are we getting?"

"I dunno," replied the Doctor promptly and unhelpfully.

Rose lightly smacked his shoulder. "How about this one?" she asked, holding up a small toaster that looked a bit like it had already been used.

"Cheapest model," responded the Doctor as if he had some idea what he was talking about, which he didn't.

"This one?"

"Too shiny."

Rose bit back a smile. "This one?"

"Not shiny enough."

The smile finally escaped. "This one?"

"Why is it red?"

"I dunno. Decorative choice."

"If we found that one in blue," said the Doctor, "it would match the TARDIS."

Rose scanned the toaster display before finding one in blue. "Here we go. This one?"

"I don't like the shape."

"Does it really matter what the shape of the toaster is?"

"To me it does." The Doctor turned away and hunted through the toaster display until he came up holding an immensely strange-looking toaster. "How about this one?"

"Doctor..."

"Yes?"

"It's shaped like an enormous egg with a slit in the top and a flat bottom. We'd only be able to cook one piece of toast at a time."

"So it's an egg toaster. It's the most interesting one here. _And _it's designer!"

"No. We are not getting the egg toaster." Rose crossed her arms stubbornly. "Any toaster in this shop besides that one."

The Doctor grinned. "Is that a challenge?"

"All I want is a toaster that can toast two slices of bread and isn't huge!" burst out Rose, who was trying immensely hard not to laugh."

"Fine." The Doctor surrendered gracefully by pulling out a toaster from the small pile now accumulating on the floor. "How about this one?"

"Not shiny enough."

"Wh-that's the one I said was too shiny!"

"I'm just messing with ya." Rose gave him a tongue-between-teeth smile and added, "Let's take this one."

"I really don't like it, but for your sake I'll suffer through it," the Doctor told her pointedly.

* * *

Lunch was at the Banana Split, as Rose had promised. The Doctor was very annoyed that the cafe didn't actually specialize in bananas, but he settled for a coffee and a croissant.

The toaster was sitting on a third chair that the Doctor had brought to the table at Rose's insistence.

"We're going to call him Mickey," she told the Doctor.

"What? _No. _If anything, that toaster's name is Jack."

"Nope. Jack would think that it's sexy to have a toaster named after you or something like that. Mickey...well...Mickey would be rather annoyed, but that isn't the point."

"Why are we naming the toaster?"

"Because I need something to do while you take two million years to drink your coffee," replied Rose. "Not to mention that I'm a bit loopy on caffeine."

"Good to know," said the Doctor happily. "What about calling it Ood?"

"Why?"

"Dunno, maybe to honor them."

"So do something else for the Ood. This toaster's name is Mickey."

The Doctor choked on a bite of his croissant and managed to swallow it before laughing for about five seconds straight. Rose joined in and whenever one would stop, the other's laughs would make them start again.

* * *

They spent the rest of the day on a park bench, throwing stale bread at pigeons and talking about things of absolutely no importance. Rose snuggled into him a bit when it started to get cold, and the Doctor decided to suggest that they go and get dinner.

"Yeah, sure," replied Rose with a bit of a yawn in her voice. "What time is it?"

"About ten to six, actually. How about we go for a sandwich, to go, and eat in the TARDIS?"

"Yeah." Then, "Adventuring is tiring."

The Doctor laughed.

* * *

"Odd," said the Doctor, hurrying to the controls of the TARDIS. "I'm picking up these signals around the Royal Hope Hospital. Plasma coils. Strange. We'll have to check it out tomorrow. Rose, can you go and plug in Jack?"

"Oi! He isn't Jack, he's Mickey!" retorted Rose, shifting the plastic bag full of sandwiches so that it wasn't digging into her arm.

"So call him Jack-Mickey TARDIS Toaster." The Doctor turned away from the controls and followed Rose and Jack-Mickey TARDIS Toaster to the kitchen.

"No he _isn't,_ he's Mickey-Jack!" Rose turned to glare playfully at him, setting Jack-Mickey/Mickey-Jack TARDIS Toaster on the counter and unwrapping her sandwich.

"Absolutely not. Jack-Mickey."

"Mickey-Jack."

"Ood."

"No. We talked about this." Rose took a bite of her sandwich and smeared a bit of mustard on her nose.

"Jack."

"Not _just_ Jack, Jack-Mickey."

"_Ha!_"

"Damn it."

* * *

**Reviews?**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	4. Mrs Smith, what exactly are you doing?

**Thanks so much for the follows, faves, and reviews! **

**Some lines are from the episode Smith and Jones.**

* * *

"Rose..."

"Hnnghnoooo."

"Yes, Rose. We need to get over to the Royal Hope Hospital."

" 'S dark out."

"Your room doesn't have any windows, how would you know that it's dark out?"

"Is it?"

"Ah- maybe- _not the point, _Rose, we need to get over to the-"

"You told me already." Rose sat up in her bed and blinked sleepily at the Doctor in the dark. "I can barely see you."

"Want me to get the lights? I'll be in the kitchen."

"Okay," yawned Rose, and as the Doctor hurried out of the room she was shifting out of bed.

* * *

The Doctor sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the toaster until Rose came in. He was suddenly very conscious of the fact that she was wearing only a nightgown that ended at her knees and a pair of fuzzy slippers.

"So," she mumbled, rubbing her eyes, "we're heading to the Lady Hope Hospital, right? Plasma coils and whatnot?"

"Yeah. I called in a few minutes ago, said I had stomach cramps and you were going to stay with me for a bit. That should be long enough for me to investigate. You should probably get dressed."

"Mmhm." Rose rummaged through the cupboards and pulled out some Cocoa Puffs before opening the refrigerator and asking, "Where's the milk at?"

"Somewhere," replied the Doctor vaguely. "You should know. You were the one who reorganized the thing."

"Oh yeah. Here it is."

There was silence for a while as Rose prepared cereal and then as they ate, and the Doctor used that silence to study Rose's face. It wasn't an intense stare, more like little glances at details. Her eyelashes, her eyes, her lips, her hair (messy as it was)...

"Doctor?"

"Yeah?" _Had she noticed?_

"I'm going to go get dressed. I'll be down in a mo." Rose stood up, stretched, cleared her place, and hurried upstairs, leaving the Doctor to ponder over his sudden attraction to being a spoony and romantic fool.

* * *

"Chips!" squealed Rose. "Come on, please? I love chips!"

"No. Come on, Rose, we have to get to the hospital. I'm _sick,_ remember?"

"Ohh, that's not fair. You have to be the adult _now _and not when you want to buy a five hundred pound toaster that would've cost us loads more than the too-shiny toaster?"

"You mean Jack-Mickey TARDIS Toaster."

"That is not its name. That is just..._not _its name."

"Here. I promise that when this is over I'll take you out for chips. Me, you, chips, that nice park bench. Sounds nice?"

"...Yeah," agreed Rose a little reluctantly. "Promise?"

"Promise."

They reached the Lady Hope Hospital after five minutes of walking, squabbling over which movie they should buy to watch on a relaxing night in the TARDIS, wheedling the Doctor for chips (this was Rose), and reminding Rose that they had set a "chip date" (this was the Doctor). It was still fairly dark when Rose and the Doctor checked in and walked upstairs to the Doctor's hospital cot.

* * *

"So what are we waiting for?" asked Rose, who was swinging her legs impatiently on a chair next to the Doctor's bed.

"We're probably just going to observe for a few hours, see if there seems to be anyone odd, anything strange happening or something of the like. If so, we further investigate and see if we can detect alien activity."

"And you're going to do all of that from your hospital bed?"

"Nah. I'll do what I can, but the observation part is up to you. Rose, if anything seems odd, though-come straight here. I'll wait as long as I can, all right?"

"You sure you want to let me wander off?" asked Rose warily. "Last time we were in a hospital Cassandra possessed me."

The Doctor was ashamed to realize that the first thing he remembered when Rose mentioned Cassandra's possession wasn't the rebirth of the human race or the work of the Sisterhood, but the intoxicating lust he'd felt when Rose (technically Cassandra-Rose) had pressed her lips to his and tangled her hands in his hair. Rose didn't remember that wonderful kiss, however much he wished that she did, and it sort of hurt that she'd never actually kissed him.

He grabbed her hand in his, realizing that she was right and he probably did want to keep an eye on her.

"You're right," he told her breathlessly. "Stay with m- I mean, stay here, Rose."

* * *

Rose was getting bored again, and she and the Doctor had started a game of hangman on his hospital chart.

"A," guessed the Doctor.

"Nope, guess again."

"What kind of a word doesn't have 'a' in it?"

"You'll see. Guess again."

"Um... E."

"Nope! Guess again!"

"I swear you're changing the word."

Rose giggled. "Nope! Not changing the word. Your guesses are just really bad, that's all."

"Oi!"

"One letter at a time, Doctor."

"How about I, then?"

"Guess again."

"You have _got _to be changing the word."

"Not changing the word, Doctor, I swear."

"O?"

Rose scribbled in two o's and glanced up at the Doctor. "You've nearly got it."

"Lies. Blatant lies." The Doctor slid down the pillow a bit and flipped onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow and staring at the paper. "Hmm. How about-"

"Don't guess any more vowels."

"I'll have you know that guessing vowels is my foolproof hangman strategy!"

"Your 'foolproof hangman strategy' has a head, a body, and an arm."

"_Fine. _Ah... D?"

Rose scribbled in a D.

"Doctor!" shouted the Doctor triumphantly.

"Brilliant!" shouted Rose.

"Did you call me?" asked a young man in a white coat, before noticing the immensely doodled-upon chart in Rose's hand and adding, "Mrs. Smith, what exactly are you doing?"

Rose dropped the chart sheepishly before picking it up again and handing it to the young man, who clipped it to the Doctor's bed and decided not to stay on. Rose and the Doctor both burst out laughing as soon as he was out of earshot.

* * *

"You can go back to the TARDIS if you want," said the Doctor sleepily. "Don't want you to stay here with the invalid."

"You're hardly an invalid," replied Rose softly. "And you'll be horribly bored if I leave, I know you. I'll just stay here, in the chair, sleep in the chair-"

"That chair looks horribly uncomfortable," the Doctor commented. "Here, I'll budge up a bit, and you can sleep on the bed."

"What about you?"

"Oh-um-I'll..I'll sleep on the bed too. If you don't mind."

Rose blushed and moved to hesitantly sit on the bed before kicking off her shoes and sliding next to the Doctor, who was lying stiffly next to her and trying not to turn his head. Turning his head would result in him pressing his mouth to her hair, which, while desirable, would be hard to explain away.

In a few minutes, however, Rose had fallen asleep, and the Doctor was able to move a bit so that he was somewhat more comfortable...

* * *

He woke up at around six in the morning with Rose curled in his arms, both of them tangled in the blankets. This would have been bad enough if she hadn't been facing him, but she had her head on his chest and her arms wrapped very tightly around him, and the temptation to press his lips briefly to the top of her head was quite overwhelming in his drowsy state.

He did. Kiss the top of her head, that is.

Then he was suddenly _wide _awake, and spent thirty minutes carefully untangling himself from Rose. Cuddling in a hospital bed was probably not a wise move if they wanted to investigate. Otherwise the Doctor would probably spend more time with Rose in his arms.

Because he'd be damned if that wasn't the best thing that had happened to him in a very long time.

* * *

Rose woke up at six forty-five in the exact same position that she had been in when she fell asleep, and when the Doctor saw her stir he said gently, "Rose, I'd advise that you get out of the bed."

"Hnnghnoooo."

"So that's your usual morning response?"

"Usually, yeah."

"Come on, up you get. I doubt the doctors will be pleased with you if you're cuddli-lying in bed w-sleeping w-" The Doctor racked his brains for something that didn't seem too romantic in nature. He wasn't sure if Rose loved him in this universe, because in the other one she'd been distraught at losing him and maybe _that _was the reason why her feelings had come to the surface._  
_

Okay, _maybe _he didn't have the foggiest idea how to have a normal relationship, and didn't want to rush into the one thing he didn't know how to do, and possibly alienate Rose in the process, but that was beside the point.

"Umm... the doctors won't like you...uhhh..." continued the Doctor vaguely.

"I get it," said Rose, who was blushing a little now, and lifted her head off the bed pillow before getting up off the bed a bit clumsily and sitting down in the chair.

They played a few rounds of hangman on the Doctor's chart (all over the data, creating a mess of scribbles and words including PEACOCK, K-NINE, and RAXACORICOFALLAPATORIOUS.) and then talked for a bit about different adventures they'd had, sparking a debate between the Doctor and Rose about whether or not Queen Victoria had become a werewolf.

* * *

Martha Jones was walking down Chancellor Street to work when two people hurried up to her; one a brown-haired man, the other a blonde young woman on his arm.

The man gently shrugged off the woman and pulled off his tie, adding, "Like so, see?" and the woman said in an annoyed voice, "_Doctor. _I think you proved your point already just by showing up. Now can we go back and take Martha out for chips? You promised chips."

The two walked away from her, arguing playfully about whether or not Martha (who was standing there and looking rather shocked) would want to go for chips and whether or not the man's taking off his tie was necessary. Martha blinked, shook her head a bit as if to clear out water, and hurried to the hospital.

* * *

The curtain opened just as Rose was saying furiously, "You're wrong! You are _so _wrong! She _is_ a werewolf, I saw it happen!" Then she froze and looked up at the stunned group of medical students, one of whom (a pretty woman with dark skin and lovely brown eyes and hair) looked half-startled and half-amused.

"Now then, Mister Smith, a very good morning to you. How are you today?" asked the leader of the small group, who the Doctor recognized as Mr. Stoker.

"Oh, not so bad. Still a bit, you know, blah," replied the Doctor, pulling a face and making Rose giggle.

"John Smith, admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains," Mr. Stoker told the students. "Jones, why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me."

Rose frowned a bit, and the Doctor could tell from her eyes that she disapproved of Mr. Stoker's pompous attitude.

The pretty woman who had smiled a bit when she'd walked in with her group hurried over and said to the Doctor and Rose in a low voice, "That wasn't very clever, running around outside, was it?"

"Sorry?" replied the Doctor.

"On Chancellor Street this morning?" hissed Miss Jones. "_You," _this directed at the Doctor, "came up to me and took your tie off. And _you," _she added, glancing at Rose, "wanted to take me out for chips."

"That's rather odd," said Rose in response, "because he's been in bed all morning, and I've been with him."

Miss Jones raised an eyebrow.

"Ask the nurses!" the Doctor defended.

Miss Jones frowned. "Well, that's weird, 'cause it looked like you."

"As time passes and I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones," said Mr. Stoker pointedly.

"Sorry. Right," replied Martha awkwardly, and as she took out the stethoscope Rose bit back a scream. The Doctor, seeing his companion's distress, reached over and squeezed her hand.

_Don't worry, _he tried to tell Rose. _She won't tell. I think I trust her._

* * *

**Reviews?**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	5. Rose, they've got a little shop!

**Thanks for the faves, follows, and reviews! **

**Some lines are from the episode Smith and Jones.**

* * *

The Doctor noticed with amusement that Miss Jones' face changed slightly when she listened to his two heartbeats.

"I weep for future generations," muttered Mr. Stoker. "Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?"

"Er, I don't know," mumbled Miss Jones uncertainly. "Stomach cramps?"

"That is a symptom, not a diagnosis. And you rather failed basic techniques by not consulting first with the patient's chart." Mr. Stoker reached for the doodled-upon chart and got a bit of an electrical shock from the metal clip. "What on earth did you do to this chart, Mr. Smith?"

The Doctor glanced over at Rose, who was staring at the doodles on the chart and fighting a laugh.

"That happened to me this morning, getting shocked like that," said Miss Jones, and the other medical students agreed.

"That's only to be expected," commented Mr. Stoker condescendingly. "There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by... Anyone?"

"Benjamin Franklin," said the Doctor.

"Correct," replied Mr. Stoker, and Rose smirked, her pride in him seeming to overcome her desire to laugh.

"My mate, Ben," added the Doctor, deciding not to let Rose off the hook, and as he'd expected she let out a giggle. "That was a day and a half. I got rope burns off that kite, and then I got soaked."

"Quite," said Mr. Stoker.

"And then I got electrocuted." By this point Rose's giggles had reached a hysterical level.

"Moving on. I think perhaps a visit from psychiatric." Mr. Stoker strolled away, the students following, but Miss Jones grinned at both the Doctor and Rose as she left.

* * *

"Oh my god," choked out Rose, finally regaining control enough over her laughs to talk coherently. "You never told me you knew Benjamin Franklin!"

"I met him a bit before you, actually. Painful, that day was. Never get electrocuted, Rose."

"And you could've _told _me that they were going to check the chart! Bet I looked really stupid."

"Thought you knew. And they all already thought you were mental when you were saying_ You're wrong! You are so wrong! She is a werewolf, I saw it happen!_"

Rose giggled, and the Doctor's attention was drawn suddenly to a rather odd phenomenon occurring outside."Ah, shut up. Seriously, Doctor, I haven't seen anything even _remotely _out of the ordinary in this hospital. Since when were our adventures boring?"

"Spoke too soon, Rose," said the Doctor, jerking his head towards the window. "Look at that rain."

"So it's raining, big-"

"No, I mean go over to the window and really _look _at that rain."

Rose obliged, looking a bit annoyed, but the annoyance dissolved as she stared incredulously at the rain for a few seconds and dashed back over to the Doctor's bed.

"It's going _up,_" she hissed. "Why is the rain going up?"

"I'm guessing an H2O scoop. Someone-or some_thing-_is taking us somewhere."

"The whole hospital?"

"Apparently so."

"You seem remarkably calm about this."

"Nothing's happened yet."

As soon as the Doctor had said those words, the building began to shake from side to side. He scrambled out of bed and grabbed Rose in his arms, sort of cushioning her as they were thrown all over the room.

"Ow-ow-ow," muttered Rose.

"You all right?" asked the Doctor breathlessly, his nose nearly touching Rose's and her eyelashes brushing his cheek every time she blinked.

"Think I twisted my ankle or something."

"Here, let me-"

"I don't think now would be the right time to look at it."

"Fair enough."

The room darkened as the building stopped moving, and Rose fell to the ground, the Doctor falling on top of her. Both of them got up and hurried to the window, Rose limping slightly.

A half-shadowed Earth shone down from the starry sky, and cratered grayish terrain was visible through the hospital window.

"Oh my god, we're on the moon," whispered Rose weakly, clutching the Doctor's hand. "We're on the moon, without a TARDIS, and with a thousand other people."

"Don't be so pessimistic, Rose," said the Doctor in a voice that (even to him) sounded falsely cheery. "We should be okay! Here, mind drawing the curtain while I get dressed?"

He hurried back to his bed and drew the curtain before taking out his folded clothing from a small suitcase he'd packed. "So is your ankle all right?"

"Probably just bruised it," replied Rose's voice from the other side of the curtain. "You okay?"

"Fine. Great. I mean, aside from the fact that we're on the moon and need to figure out how to get down to Earth again."

"I meant _physically_." Rose sounded both amused and annoyed.

"Oh. Well, a couple scrapes, but nothing actually serious." The Doctor hurriedly buttoned up his shirt and started on his tie. "You?"

"Nothing but my ankle," said Rose. "I can still run pretty fast, though, so it's not an issue."

The Doctor donned his jacket and hurried outside. "There. Now, what do you think we should-"

"You're all rumpled," Rose remarked, and carefully smoothed down his shirt and tie before closing his jacket. "There. How's that?"

"M-much better, thanks," choked the Doctor. "Now, there seems to be a crowd over near the window. Care to investigate?"

"As always," replied Rose, taking the Doctor's hand and walking over to the window.

"... not exactly air tight. If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. So how come?" Miss Jones was saying, frowning out the window.

"Very good point," commented the Doctor, walking up to Miss Jones with Rose in tow. "Brilliant, in fact. What was your name?"

"Martha," answered Miss Jones.

"And it was Jones, wasn't it? Well then, Martha Jones, the question is, how are we still breathing?"

"We can't be," the Doctor heard a woman say, and Rose let go of his hand to gently console the slightly hysterical medical worker.

The Doctor turned to Martha and asked, "Martha, what have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda, or-"

"By the patients' lounge, yeah," Martha answered.

"Fancy going out with me and Rose?"

"Okay," said Martha.

"We might die," Rose commented, turning away from the medical worker and hurrying over to the Doctor and Martha.

"We might not," Martha countered.

"I like you, Martha Jones," said Rose happily.

"Come on!" said the Doctor impatiently, grabbing Rose's hand and tugging her along with a pointed look at Martha, who followed.

* * *

"We've got air," said Martha softly. "How does that work?"

"Just be glad it does," replied the Doctor.

"I've got a party tonight. It's my brother's twenty first. My mother's going to be really, really-" Martha's voice broke a little.

"You have a brother?" asked Rose softly. "I'm an only child. I always wanted a bigger family."

"So it's you and your mum and dad?"

Rose sighed. "J-just me, actually."

Her three simple words made guilt pierce the Doctor's heart and a sad smile twist his face.

"I'm sorry if I'm being nosy-" began Martha, but Rose cut her off gently.

"No, it's okay. My dad died when I was a baby, and then my mum-well-she didn't come home from Canary Wharf."

"I had a cousin. Adeola. She worked at Canary Wharf. She didn't come home either. I can't say that it's as bad as losing your mum, but-"

"Oh, don't, don't say that!" said Rose, sounding horrified. "It's loss! Never undermine any sort of loss. It doesn't matter what you compare it to, just as long as you don't underestimate loss."

Martha looked at Rose with a new respect and admiration. "I think I like you as well, Mrs. Smith."

"Oh, actually, my name's Rose. Rose Tyler."

"But weren't you registered as Rose Smith?"

"We're not married," Rose explained. "The Doctor wanted to get in here and check out the plasma coils, and saying we were married seemed the simplest. And he isn't John Smith, he's just the Doctor."

"Couldn't have put it better myself," said the Doctor.

"But you _are _together," stated Martha. Both the Doctor and Rose blushed furiously and denied it emphatically, all the while sneaking looks at each other and smiling sheepishly at Martha, who was grinning back. Her grin faded, however, when she said softly, "What d'you think happened?"

"What do _you _think?" countered the Doctor.

"Extraterrestrial. It's got to be. I don't know, a few years ago that would have sounded mad, but these days? That spaceship flying into Big Ben, Christmas, those Cybermen things." Martha sighed. "My cousin." Rose slipped her hand into Martha's and squeezed it, and the latter smiled a little tiredly. "Thanks."

"No problem," Rose responded shyly, and the Doctor remembered that Rose hadn't been around another human girl for quite some time.

He coughed. "So! Probably some sort of forcefield keeping the air in. Let's have a look-see..." He picked up a rock and threw it. For a moment, a green bubble was visible, but then it was gone.

"But if there's a forcefield keeping the air in, then this means that this is the only air we have," Martha said, clearly horrified.

"What happens when it runs out?" added Rose.

"How many people in this hospital?" the Doctor asked Martha.

"I dunno, a thousand?"

"One thousand people suffocating."

Rose swore softly, and a slightly paler Martha demanded, "Why would anyone do that?"

"Heads up!" said the Doctor, catching sight of some sort of spacecraft landing on the surface of the moon. "Ask them yourself." No, not some sort of spacecraft. Three spacecrafts. Three cylindrical spacecrafts that could only belong to...

"Aliens," mumbled Martha. "That's aliens. Real, proper aliens."

"Judoon," said the Doctor.

* * *

A few floors up, Mr. Stoker screamed.

* * *

"Oh, look at that. You've got a little shop. Rose, they've got a little shop! I like a little shop."

"Doctor, forget about the shop." Rose moved a bit so that Martha could look at the Judoon as well. "Who the hell are Judoon, and why'd they bring us here?"

"Ahh, that's my Rose! Always asking the right questions." The Doctor grinned at Rose before answering, "They're like police. Well, police for hire. They're more like interplanetary thugs. And they brought us to the moon because it's neutral territory. According to galactic law, they've got no jurisdiction over the Earth, and they isolated it. That rain, lightning? That was them, using an H2O scoop."

"Plasma coils!" gasped Rose. "Are they trying to find that thing causing the plasma coils?"

The Doctor turned slowly to look at Rose, and said a little impatiently, "Rose, they were _causing _the plasma coils. I take back what I said about you always asking the right questions."

"But what're you on about, galactic law? Where'd you get that from? If they're police, are we under arrest? Are we trespassing on the moon or something?" Martha questioned rapidly.

"No, but I like that. Good thinking. No, I wish it were that simple. They're making a catalogue. That means they're after something non human, which is very bad news for me." The Doctor glanced around. "They're not up here yet."

"But they aren't looking for _you _specifically, are they?" asked Rose.

"No, no, not specifically me-"

"Why'd that be bad news for you? Oh, you're kidding me. Don't be ridiculous. Stop looking at me like that."

"Come on," said the Doctor, grabbing Rose's hand and motioning for Martha to follow.

* * *

**I always loved the part where the Doctor told Mr. Stoker about how he knew Benjamin Franklin.**

**Please review!**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	6. Best mates don't kiss like that

**Thanks for the faves, follows, and reviews!**

* * *

"They've reached third floor," Martha told the Doctor, and then "What is that thing?"

"Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor and Rose said at the same time.

"Well, if you aren't going to answer me properly-"

"No, no, it is, really!" replied Rose earnestly. "Likes it more than me, he does."

The Doctor turned the color of a tomato as the response _There's nothing I like more than you, Rose Tyler _danced across his mind. To cover up his blush, he exclaimed, "Oh, this computer! The Judoon must have locked it down. Judoon platoon upon the moon." Rose smiled and her hair brushed his shoulder as she leaned in to look at the computer. The Doctor lost his train of thought. "Because Rose and I were just traveling past. I swear, we were only in London for Jack-Mickey TARDIS Toaster-"

"Doctor, that is _so _not its name," muttered Rose.

"-and we weren't looking for trouble, honestly we weren't, but I noticed these plasma coils around the hospital, and that lightning, that's a plasma coil. Been building up for two days now, so Rose and I checked in. I thought something was going on inside. It turns out the plasma coils were the Judoon up above."

"But what were they looking for?" asked Martha bemusedly.

"Something nonhuman," responded Rose. "Bad news for the Doctor, remember?"

"Like you?" Martha asked.

"Like me," the Doctor responded a bit impatiently. "But not me."

"Haven't they got a photo?"

"Well, it might be a shape-changer," the Doctor said.

"Why not just let the Judoon find it?" asked Rose. "Then they'd send us back to Earth, right?"

"If they declare the hospital guilty of harboring a fugitive, they'll sentence it to execution," replied the Doctor promptly.

"All of us?" gasped Martha, and Rose glared at the door as if daring a Judoon to show up.

" Oh yes. If I can't find this thing first." The Doctor managed to break through the lockdown before exclaiming, "Oh! You see, they're thick! Judoon are thick! They are completely thick! They wiped the records. Oh, that's clever."

"What are we looking for?" asked Martha.

"I dunno. ("That's rare," Rose muttered. The Doctor ignored her.) Say, any patient admitted in the past week with unusual symptoms. Maybe there's a back-up."

"Just keep working," Martha told the Doctor. "I'll go ask Mr. Stoker. He might know."

As she hurried out of the room, Rose mumbled, "D'you think she might want to come with us?"

"_Rose. _We don't go picking up humans like stray dogs."

"No, it's just-" Rose's voice caught, and the Doctor realized with a start that she was on the verge of tears.

"What's wrong?"

"I-don't take this too personally, Doctor, but I miss talking to other girls."

The Doctor looked at his hands. _I'm not a good enough friend to make up for that? _"No, I get where you're coming from," he responded carefully. "Some things you just can't talk about with your best mate if he's a bloke, right?"

"Best mate," Rose echoed, sounding strangely disappointed. "I didn't realize you thought of me like that."

"Course you're my best mate!" said the Doctor emphatically. "What else would you be?"

Rose's jaw set, and then she said suddenly, "I'm gonna go check on Martha."

"Hang on-Aha! Here, I'll go with you." The Doctor, who had restored the backup, hopped up and took Rose's hand. She didn't hold his hand; she just sort of let him hold hers and tow her along.

They ran all the way up to Mr. Stoker's office, and as soon as they saw a slightly panicky Martha the Doctor told her, "I've restored the backup."

"I found her," replied Martha.

"You did what?" said the Doctor rather stupidly, daring a glance at Rose, who looked like she was just barely holding herself together. Two Slabs broke down Mr. Stoker's office door. "Run!"

* * *

They ran all the way down to the radiology room, where the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to lock the door before pushing Rose and Martha behind the radiation screen.

"Oi!" said Rose angrily, and shoved him back.

"When I say now, press the button," said the Doctor breathlessly.

"But I don't know which one-"

"Here, I'll help," Rose told Martha, and grabbed the user's manual from the shelf.

Meanwhile, the Doctor dashed over to the x-ray machine and began adjusting the settings. He could hear the Slab trying to batter down the door, and it succeeded a moment before the Doctor shouted "NOW!"

The Slab fell face-down, and Martha turned the machine off.

"Way to go, Jones!" said Rose, and then, "Doctor, what'd you do to him?"

"Increased the radiation by five thousand percent. Killed him dead," the Doctor replied bluntly.

"Won't that kill you?" asked Martha, and Rose gave a soft little gasp at the thought of him dying. This gave the Doctor a case of what humans would call the "warm fuzzies."

"Nah," the Doctor responded proudly, "it's only roentgen radiation. We used to play with roentgen bricks in the nursery. It's safe for you to come out. I've absorbed it all. All I need to do is expel it. If I concentrate I can shake the radiation out of my body and into one spot. It's in my left shoe." The Doctor began doing a sort of jig which made Martha stare incredulously and Rose smile reluctantly. "Here we go, here we go. Easy does it. Out, out, out, out, out. Out, out. Ah, ah, ah, ah! It is, it is, it is, it is, it is hot. Hold on. " Rose let out a little giggle. "There! Done." The Doctor threw his shoe into a trash bin.

"You're completely mad," said Martha bemusedly.

"You're right. I look daft with one shoe." The Doctor threw out the other shoe as well. "Barefoot on the moon."

"So what is that thing?" Martha inquired. "And where's it from, the planet Zovirax?"

"It's just a Slab. They're called Slabs. Basic slave drones. See? Solid leather, all the way through. Someone has got one hell of a fetish. " The Doctor glanced at Rose, who was smiling again in the way she smiled when she wasn't trying to smile and wanted to sulk instead.

"But it was that woman, Miss Finnegan. It was working for her, just like a servant." Martha sounded extremely upset.

But the Doctor had noticed something in the x-ray machine. "My sonic screwdriver," he mumbled.

"She was one of the patients, but-"

"Oh, no. My sonic screwdriver."

"She had a straw like some kind of vampire."

"I loved my sonic screwdriver," said the Doctor morosely.

"Come on, Doctor, we need to focus," Rose told him gently, slipping her hand into his and bringing him back to Earth. Or to the Moon.

"Right. Yeah. Sorry."

"Anyway?" said Martha pointedly. "Miss Finnegan is the alien. She was drinking Mr. Stoker's blood."

" Funny time to take a snack. You'd think she'd be hiding. Unless. No. Yes, that's it. Wait a minute. Yes!"

"Is he always like this?" Martha muttered to Rose.

"Yeah. But he grows on ya," Rose replied.

"Quiet, you two. Shape-changer. Internal shape-changer. She wasn't drinking blood, she was assimilating it. If she can assimilate Mister Stoker's blood, mimic the biology, she'll register as human. We've got to find her and show the Judoon. Come on!" The Doctor sprinted down the corridor with Rose's hand in his and Martha following.

* * *

"That's the thing about Slabs," the Doctor said. "They always travel in pairs."

"Like you two?" asked Martha.

Rose shrugged. "Nah. He saved me from some mannequins a few years back. Long story."

Martha grinned. "So are you an alien too?"

"I'm as human as you are," Rose told her.

"I'm still not convinced that the Doctor's an alien," said Martha.

"Non-human," said the Judoon that the Doctor had walked into.

"Oh, my God-" began Martha, but the Doctor had grabbed Rose's hand again and she had to sprint with them to get away from the Judoon.

They pulled to a stop in an upper corridor, and Rose immediately demanded, "Why are we stopping?"

"They've done this floor," the Doctor replied. "They won't check a floor that they've already checked."

"How much oxygen is there?" Martha asked her friend, who was giving oxygen to a patient.

"Not enough for all these people," replied the young woman. "We're going to run out."

"How are you two feeling?" asked the Doctor, his eyes on Rose. "Are you all right?"

"I'm running on adrenaline," replied Martha.

"Welcome to my world. Rose?"

"Fine," replied Rose shortly.

"Are you upset about something? You seem upset about something."

"You are a bloody idiot," Rose told him.

The Doctor opened his mouth to retort, but Martha said hurriedly, "Aren't we looking for the Judoon?"

"Quite right. Where's Mr. Stoker's office?"

"This way, come on."

* * *

"She's gone," said Martha, seeming slightly befuddled. "She _was _here."

"Drained him dry," the Doctor commented on Mr. Stoker, who was lying in a heap. "I was right. She's a plasmavore."

"What's she doing on Earth?" asked Rose.

"Hiding. On the run. Like Ronald Biggs in Rio de Janeiro. What's she doing now? She's still not safe. The Judoon could execute us all. Come on." The Doctor dashed down the corridor, and after a moment Martha and Rose joined him.

* * *

"Think, think, think," mumbled the Doctor. "If I was a plasmavore surrounded by police, what would I do?" He caught sight of the sign to the MRI and grinned. "Ah. She's as clever as me. Almost."

A crash sounded, and they heard the Judoon rumble, "Find the non-human. Execute."

"Martha, stay here. I need time. Rose, you've got to hold them up."

"How am I supposed to do that?" asked Rose.

The Doctor's stomach flipped over. _No matter what I say to myself, this still seems like an awful first kiss for Rose.__ But it's better than me kissing Martha in front of her..._ "It could save thousands of lives. It means...well...not _nothing, _not that, but I just-I have to-" _  
_

And then he was kissing Rose.

The universe seemed to freeze as he kissed her, one hand cupping her chin and the other around her waist, pulling her closer. Rose was taken off guard for a moment, but then she grabbed his jacket and pulled _him _closer and it was bliss and elation and ecstasy-

He heard the Judoon coming and let Rose go. She looked at him for a long moment before kissing him a second time, this one only lasting half a second, and hastily pushing him down the corridor.

"What was _that?" _gasped Martha.

Rose grinned dizzily. "Best mates don't kiss like that."

* * *

"Have you seen them?" the Doctor told Miss Finnegan a second after he burst into MRI. "There are these-_things_. These _great big space rhino things_. I mean, rhinos from space. And we're on the _moon_! Great big space rhinos with guns on the moon. And I only came in for my bunions, look. I mean, all fixed now. Perfectly good treatment. The nurses were lovely. I said to my wife, I said I'd recommend this place to anyone, but then we end up on the moon. And did I mention the rhinos?"

"Hold him," said Miss Finnegan. The Slab grabbed the Doctor's arm and he held back a smile. Plasmavores. Ever so predictable.

"Er, that, that big-er-machine thing. Is it supposed to be making that noise?"

"You wouldn't understand," replied Miss Finnegan dismissively.

The Doctor continued to talk, trying to keep Miss Finnegan busy, all the time thinking of the wonderful kiss he'd just shared with Rose.

* * *

**Reviews?**

**I like reviews. And caramels. And marshmallows. Tell me in a review, do you like caramels, marshmallows, or something else?**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	7. Picking up people like strays

**Thank you so much for the follows, faves, and reviews!**

* * *

"Find the non-human. Execute." The Judoon came clomping down the corridor, and Martha let out a little gasp.

"Don't worry," Rose told her softly. "The Doctor wouldn't have just left us here. He had some sort of plan, I know him, I-"

"Human," said one of the Judoon, finishing with its scan of Martha and turning to Rose. "Human. Wait. Non-human traits suspected. Non-human element confirmed. Authorize full scan. What are you? What are you?"

Rose bit her lip. Had the Doctor done something wrong?

_Don't doubt him. Never doubt him. He always comes through. Always. Except when he thinks that you're his best mate and then he doesn't even pick up on the fact that you want to be more._

"Confirm human. Traces of facial contact with non-human." Rose blushed a bit. "Continue the search." The Judoon handed Rose a booklet. "You will need this."

"What's that for?" asked Martha.

"Compensation," replied the Judoon, and clomped away.

"Where's the Doctor?" Martha asked as soon as the Judoon were gone. "D'you think we should try and find him?"

Rose nodded vaguely, her mind still on the Doctor.

_People most definitely do not kiss their best mates like that._

* * *

They hurried down the corridor to the MRI room, and when they saw a group of Judoon surrounding something Rose automatically expected to hear the Doctor chattering away to the Judoon about how he'd discovered the plasmavore. But he wasn't talking, which was very unusual for the Doctor.

"Scan him," said one of the Judoon. "Confirmation-deceased."

Rose screamed, grabbing Martha's hand and towing her through. "No!" she shouted, collapsing on her knees next to the Doctor, checking his pulse. "No, no, no."

"Stop," the Judoon rumbled. "Case closed."

Rose was shuddering too much to talk, so Martha took charge and shouted angrily at the Judoon, "But it was her! Florence Fletcher! She killed him. She did it. She murdered him."

"Judoon have no authority over human crime."

"SHE ISN'T HUMAN!" Rose stood up, tears running down her cheeks, and felt completely ready to punch the Judoon in the face. Martha managed to grab her and pull her back.

"Come on, Rose," she encouraged shakily. "You've seen what they do to people who attack them."

"Oh, but I am human," Miss Finnegan told the Judoon, the picture of innocence. "I've been catalogued."

"But she's not! She assimi-" Something suddenly occurred to Martha. "Wait a minute. You drank his blood? The Doctor's blood?" Martha grabbed a scanner (making sure that her other arm was still restraining Rose) and pointed it at Miss Finnegan.

"Oh, I don't mind. Scan all you like."

"Non-human," said the Judoon, and Rose went limp with relief against Martha's arm.

"But, what?" Miss Finnegan seemed obviously nonplussed that her scheme had failed.

"Confirm analysis."

"Oh, but it's a mistake, surely. I'm human. I'm as human as they come," said Miss Finnegan, trying to retreat back into sweet-old-lady mode.

"He gave his life so they'd find you," whispered Martha.

Rose uttered a strangled sob.

"Confirm," said the Judoon. "Plasmavore, charged with the crime of murdering the child princess of Patrival Regency Nine."

"Well, she deserved it!" snapped Miss Finnegan, sweet-old-lady mode flung away like a cloak. "Those pink cheeks and those blonde curls and that simpering voice. She was _begging_ for the bite of a plasmavore."

"Then you confess?"

"Confess?" chortled Miss Finnegan. "I'm proud of it! Slab, stop them!"

The Judoon fried the Slab before turning to Miss Finnegan and saying, "Verdict, guilty. Sentence, execution."

Miss Finnegan ran for it, dashing behind the screen and bending down before coming back up with a triumphant expression. "Enjoy your victory, Judoon," she shouted, "because you're going to burn with me. Burn in hell!"

The Judoon fired, incinerating her.

"Case closed," one stated.

"But what did she mean, burn with me?" asked Martha. "The scanner shouldn't be doing that. She's done something to it."

"Scans detect lethal acceleration of monomagnetic pulse."

"So bloody _do something!_" shouted Rose angrily. "It's your fault he's dead!"

"Our jurisdiction has ended. Judoon will evacuate."

"What? You can't just leave it. What's it going to do?" Martha demanded.

"All units withdraw," the Judoon rumbled, clomping out of the corridor with the other Judoon following.

Martha dashed away, presumably to yell something after the Judoon, and Rose sunk to her knees next to the Doctor.

"You daft alien," she mumbled tearfully, pressing her lips softly to his forehead. Why did he have to go off and sacrifice himself? Why didn't he tell her that he was going to go off and sacrifice himself. "You wonderful daft alien." Her head was beginning to spin, and she suspected it had to do with the lack of oxygen. Her vision fuzzed at the edges, and she collapsed on top of the Doctor.

* * *

Martha ran back in, and saw that now Rose was sprawled with her head on the Doctor's chest. She hurried to the Doctor and began to desperately perform CPR on him, carefully moving the semiconscious Rose out of the way.

"Come on, come on," she whispered. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five."

"Two hearts," Rose reminded her weakly.

"Right, thanks. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five." Martha took a last gulp of air and gave it to the Doctor, collapsing on the ground as he sat up. "The scanner," she gasped. "She did something."

The Doctor nodded briefly before crawling to the scanner controls and rummaging in his jacket pockets for his sonic screwdr-

"Soddit," he muttered, remembering the fried piece of metal in a radiology room trash bin. He pulled apart the cables, and the scanner turned off. And then he stood up, his head spinning a bit, propped Martha up on a chair near the scanner, and picked up Rose, carrying her down the corridor and some stairs, and sinking into the chair next to his own hospital bed, his companion curled in his lap.

Rose shifted a bit in his arms.

The Doctor stared out the window. "Come on, come on, come on, come on, please. Come on, Judoon, reverse it."

And then it began to rain.

"It's raining, Rose," the Doctor whispered in Rose's ear. She stirred weakly. "It's raining on the moon." The busy London streets appeared at the window, and Rose gasped before opening her eyes.

"Hello," said the Doctor weakly.

Rose stared at him, and then she was hugging him fiercely. "You're not dead. Thank God," she mumbled into his shoulder. "I knew you were okay. You're always okay."

The Doctor laughed and wrapped his arms around her waist. "I'm always okay, am I? According to the Judoon, I was dead."

"Yeah, but you're okay now. And Doctor?"

"Yeah?"

"You _so _owe me chips."

* * *

They left quietly in the TARDIS, letting Martha handle what she must.

"You know," said Rose softly from where she was sitting on the leather seat, "we should ask Martha to come with us."

"Why?" replied the Doctor. "I have you."

"Yeah, but-"

"Rose, you barely met Martha," the Doctor cut her off. "We can't just go picking up people like strays."

"We?"

The Doctor smiled softly. "Well, yeah. I mean, you and I, we're a team, remember? Shiver and Shake."

Rose smiled back, and then apprehensively kissed him on the cheek. "Shiver and Shake," she echoed. "Which means I get to make some decisions. Which means Martha is going to come with us for a bit."

"Wha? Um. Hmm. Yeah. Okay," replied the Doctor, who looked like he had completely forgotten what they were talking about. "We could go out for chips tonight."

"Sure." Rose was grinning now. "Chips with Martha. Can you teach me how to fly this thing, then?"

"No can do, Rose, because you are not yet at that level of membership."

Rose rolled her eyes.

* * *

They spent the rest of the day playing checkers in the TARDIS game room, until Rose reminded the Doctor that they should probably go ask Martha if she wanted to come.

"No," replied the Doctor. "No, no, no. We're on the world championship game. Whoever wins this one gets to choose what we watch during movie night this Saturday. Will it be Saturday in two days? Time is sort of irrelevant when you time-and-space travel."

"Come _on, _Doctor. We can finish the world championship game later."

"How about we pick up Martha tomorrow by going back to yesterday, hmm?"

"No. Chips. You promised."

"Why on earth are you so fixated on chips?"

"Because all I've eaten today is hospital food and popcorn." To illustrate her point, Rose took a handful of popcorn from the bowl on the Doctor's side of the table and popped a kernel in her mouth. "See?"

"If I'd known you were hungry-"

"Then we'd have had to stop playing checkers. How about we finish the game tomorrow?"

"How about we finish it right now?"

"Fine. Here. Jump, jump, jump, jump, I just killed your last four pieces."

The Doctor muttered something about wondering when she was going to see that utterly obvious move before standing up and saying reluctantly, "Martha Jones, here we come."

* * *

Martha Jones was standing outside a restaurant with her family all heading towards a fancy black sports car. Rose waved frantically at her and the Doctor pulled them both back into the shadows.

"Let her come," he told her. "You wave like that, it ruins all the mystery."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Whatever works for you, Doctor."

Martha rounded the corner and said a little dazedly, "I went to the moon today."

"Bit more peaceful than down here," replied the Doctor.

"You never even told me who you are," Martha said to the Doctor.

"I'm a Time Lord," he replied promptly.

"_Right! _Not pompous at all, then."

Rose giggled.

"Rose here thought you might fancy a trip," said the Doctor. "She thought that we could take you out for chips in our spaceship."

"What, into space?"

"Well. First I have to buy Rose some chips. You could come too if you wanted."

"But I can't," Martha replied. "I've got exams. I've got things to do. I have to go into town first thing and pay the rent, I've got my family going mad."

"He can travel in time too," Rose commented quietly.

"Get out of here," snorted Martha incredulously.

"I can," said the Doctor proudly.

"Come on now, that's going too far."

"Allons-y, Rose, let's prove it to her!" the Doctor enthusiastically replied, linking his arm with Rose's and dragging her into the TARDIS.

* * *

Rose watched the Doctor steer the TARDIS and reflected on how different he was from the other men-no, _boys, _the Doctor outranked all of the other _boys _she'd loved by far-she had once thought she'd loved.

First had been Matthew Lane, a sweet boy who had tried to mold her into a good student and a better person. A boy who looked both ways before he crossed the street, and a boy who had attempted to curb her natural impulsiveness. She'd gotten tired of trying to be who Matthew wanted her to be instead of who _she _wanted her to be, and he'd broken up with her when he'd found out that she would no longer allow him to mold her.

Then there had been Jimmy Stone. A name that made her wince a bit, because he was daring and reckless and _way _too old for her. But she'd been a naive teenager with a penchant for rebellion, and she didn't want the set course her mother had planned for her. She'd gone off with him and he'd cheated on her and left her in tears and in debt. She'd had to work three jobs for two years, and she never saw his face again. Oh, she heard about his excursions and his time in prison and his eventual career as a door-to-door salesman, but she never _saw _him. Not in person. Which was a good thing for him, because after fighting a few aliens she could easily take down a scummy ex-boyfriend.

And last came Mickey, who had loved her in a simple way and who she had expected herself to love because...well...he was constant, unlike Jimmy, and he didn't try to change her, unlike Matthew. She had supposed that she had loved him, only because she had never experienced love where she could see the things she loved in the person, not just the things they loved in her.

But the Doctor was quirky and silly and brave and clever, and nothing at all like anyone she'd ever known. He understood her and he didn't ask her to change. However, he also knew that she wasn't going to stay the same Rose Tyler that she'd been when she'd entered the TARDIS for the first time._  
_

"Rose, you look rather preoccupied," said the Doctor quietly, and Rose realized that the engines had stopped whirring. "You do remember that we're off to convince Martha that we're time travelers, right?"

"Yeah," replied Rose softly. "Yeah, I know."

* * *

"Told you," the Doctor said triumphantly. "Now, before we leave, I have to take Rose out for chips. You want to come?"

"Oh, my God. You can travel in time. But hold on. If you could see me this morning, why didn't you tell me not to go in to work?"

"Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden. Except for cheap tricks," the Doctor replied.

Rose laughed.

"And that's your spaceship?"

"It's called the TARDIS. Time And-"

"Relative Dimension In Space," Rose finished, giving the Doctor a little grin. He stared at her a little dazedly for a moment before saying very softly, "You remembered."

"How could I forget?"

"You two done flirting?" said Martha pointedly. "Your spaceship's made of wood. There's not much room. We'd all be a bit intimate."

"Here, have a look," the Doctor responded, stepping into the TARDIS and pulling Rose along with him.

"No, no, no," whispered Martha, backing out and circling the box.

"You did that, remember?" the Doctor whispered to Rose, who smiled a little at the memory.

"But it's just a box," they heard Martha say incredulously. "But it's huge." She stepped back in. "How does it do that? It's wood. It's like a box with that room just rammed in. It's bigger on the inside."

"Is it? I hadn't noticed," replied the Doctor innocently. "So, d'you want to get some chips with me and Rose or find a bedroom in the TARDIS?"

"Um, I was just at a party, so I'm not that hungry. I'll just-find a bedroom," Martha answered.

"Don't get lost. It's a big ship," Rose encouraged. "By the way, the one with the flowers painted on the door is mine."

"I think I'll be okay. You two have fun on your date, all right?"

Both the Doctor and Rose flushed different shades of red.

"She isn't-"

"He's not-"

"We're just-"

"I mean-"

"Whatever you say," giggled Martha.

* * *

**Question: What do you think is your favorite type of monster in Doctor Who? I like the Weeping Angels, just because the whole concept is really cool.**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	8. Don't wear anything with a big skirt

**Thank you for the favorites, follows, and reviews!**

* * *

"These are _good chips,_" said Rose enthusiastically. "I'm starving."

"Yeah, sorry about that," replied the Doctor sheepishly. "I didn't mean to forget about lunch."

"Oh, if I can guilt you into buying me chips-"

"Actually, you're paying for the chips," the Doctor muttered.

"What sort of date are you?" demanded Rose playfully.

"The penniless sort, now cough up. I know you've got enough to pay for the chips at least."

"If I'd known I'd have to pay-" began Rose indignantly, but the Doctor gave her a pointed look and she conceded. "All right, fine, I would've gone anyway."

"Rose, someday I think you're going to marry a chip."

"Stop it." Rose's mouth twitched.

"I do! And your wedding dress will have to have pockets-"

"Doctor, stop it."

"And you'll invite me, because I'm the best thing that ever happened to you-"

"Well, yeah, you're definitely going to be at my wedding if I ever have one," mumbled Rose with a blush.

_'Cause the only person I'll ever want to marry is you._

"Splendid! And if you don't invite me I'll just gate-crash. Rose and Chip Tyler. Has a sort of ring to it, don't you think?"

Rose started giggling madly. "St-stop!"

"Oh, I haven't even gotten _started _yet," replied the Doctor, and then they were talking enthusiastically, joking, laughing, just like proper best mates. But sometimes the Doctor would get this look in her eyes when he looked at her, sort of furtive and hopeful at the same time, and Rose would feel an explosion of warmth and affection in her stomach.

* * *

They headed back to the TARDIS and the Doctor asked Rose to go get Martha so that they could begin traveling.

Rose grinned and nodded. "Happy to oblige. So where are you taking her?"

"I'm thinking maybe the suburbs of New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York, or Shakespearean England-"

"Oooh, Shakespeare, please please please!" gasped Rose. "I've never met Shakespeare before!"

"All right then. Executive decision from Captain Rose. We're off to see Shakespeare."

"I'm a captain now? I like that. Let me go get Martha and see if she's ready." Rose hurried down the stairs of the TARDIS, walked across a rickety rope bridge, opened a pair of enormous double doors leading into an enormous living room, and walked down a corridor lined with bedrooms, the end of which had a door with the nameplate _Doctor _on it. She had never been into his room.

As Rose had expected, the TARDIS had added on a new room for Martha. The corridor was getting ridiculously long, but thankfully the TARDIS placed the newest bedroom nearest to the beginning of the corridor, which also discouraged Rose from going into the Doctor's room.

She knocked on the door. "Martha? We're about ready to take off. You want to come out? Going to be a bit of a bumpy ride, but it's really worth it."

There was no reply.

"Martha?" called Rose again, and then, "Martha, I'm coming in, okay?"

She opened the door hesitantly. Martha lay asleep on the bed, not even under the covers, her shoes still on.

"Okay," whispered Rose, and shut the door, hurrying to tell the Doctor that they might have to postpone the trip to Shakespearean England.

* * *

Rose lay curled in her bed, exhausted from the events of the day and the kiss that she had received from the Doctor-whether or not it had any real meaning she had loved it just the same. She closed her eyes and relived that wonderful moment when the Doctor had kissed her.

_His arm sort of wrapped around my waist, and then his hand cupped my chin, and then he ran off-_

Back up.

_And there were fireworks for five seconds until he ran off-_

Back up.

_The world was perfect until he ran off, without any explanation, and let me believe he was dead-_

Rose sighed. Sometimes the Doctor was utterly wonderful. Sometimes he was utterly insensitive. Sometimes he mixed wonderful and insensitive into such a muddle that she couldn't tell which was which.

* * *

She woke up late the next morning and stumbled blearily down to breakfast, where Martha was sitting dressed in clothing from the wardrobe room and eating something green and many-legged with an expression of disgust.

"Oh, you don't have to eat that!" gasped Rose, now a bit more awake. "You got the wrong fridge. Same thing happened to me when I came down for breakfast my first morning here. And my second, actually. Took the Doctor a week to realize that I didn't like whatever he eats for breakfast and preferred normal human food instead. He eats normal human food usually, but in his last incarnation he liked alien food better."

Martha, who looked rather relieved to see the other fridge full of slightly more normal fruits and vegetables, replied "Incarnation?"

"He'll explain at some point," Rose yawned. "Where _is _he, anyway?"

"Sleeping in, I think," giggled Martha. "Heard some snoring from his room. He snores remarkably loud, did you know?"

"Yeah, he does that." Rose turned to the fridge and pulled out a box of cereal. "He also put the cereal in the fridge _again, _even after I told him you don't eat it chilled. Half the time he's smarter than me and the other half he acts like a hyperactive ten-year-old."

Martha laughed. "What kind of cereal is that?"

"Normal kind," replied Rose. "That's the best answer you're going to get. Sorry. I sort of had to use the boxes to make a cardboard sword-there were these blobs that were trying to kill us and their weakness was cardboard among other things-and then I had to find new boxes so now I have no idea what kind of cereal it is."

"Is your life always like this?"

"Now it is," Rose answered, piling cereal into two bowls and getting out a carton of milk, "but I used to have a simpler one. Wouldn't miss this for the world, though."

Martha smiled. "You think I'll be like this too, someday?"

"Not everyone wants to stay forever," Rose replied. "Haven't known you long enough to be able to tell if you're going to stick with us. There was this woman, Donna-brilliant. Only person I've ever seen slap the Doctor, and more than once too. But she didn't want to come with us. The Huon particles residing in her got attracted to the Huon particles on our ship, and she was part of this plan for the-well-you remember the Christmas star? Long story. Anyway. She didn't want to stay."

"Ah," said Martha, who plainly had no idea what Rose was talking about. "So are we going to go yet? It was nice to have a bit of a rest."

"I should go and wake the Doctor up after I've had something to eat," Rose responded, taking two spoons out of a drawer. "Cereal?"

"Ta."

There was silence for a while as the two girls ate their breakfast, and it was a little bit awkward. Thankfully, Rose finished her breakfast quickly, and excused herself to go wake the Doctor.

* * *

The Doctor was tangled in the blankets, his face planted firmly in a pillow. Rose stifled a giggle before sitting down on the edge of his bed and lightly shaking him.

"Wake up, Doctor."

"Hmm," mumbled the Doctor into the pillow, and then "Rose."

Rose smiled softly. "Thought you didn't need to sleep?"

"Rose," breathed the Doctor again.

Rose shook him again, her cheeks slightly pink. "Wake up, Doctor."

The Doctor yawned into the pillow, flipped over, and stared blearily up at Rose before mumbling, "What time is it?"

"We're in the TARDIS. It's any time you want it to be. Are we going to Shakespearean England or not?"

"Oh. Yeah. You mind leaving so I can get dressed?" asked the Doctor, sitting up and looking slightly more alert.

"Sure. Sorry. Me and Martha'll get ready."

"Don't wear anything with a big skirt," commented the Doctor. "At some point we'll probably be running."

"Fair enough," replied Rose, remembering vaguely that she was still in her nightie. "See you in a bit."

* * *

"A bit" proved to be about twenty minutes, long enough for Rose to get into something slightly more suitable.

"Right then, are we ready to go?" asked the Doctor, sticking his head into the kitchen. "If you are that's great, because I'm about to start up the TARDIS and it's going to get a bit bumpy down here. And when I say 'a bit', I mean 'a lot', so I'd recommend coming up to the control room instead."

"Took you long enough," muttered Rose, putting her book on the kitchen table. "Martha, you good to go?"

"Great!" said Martha excitedly from where she was rooting through the Doctor's fridge, and then, "Are you aware that something in your refrigerator is shedding, Doctor?"

"Oh, that would be the eggs I bought on Dextrus-1. You might want to steer clear of those for a bit, because if touched they can be highly toxic to humans. They make an amazing sandwich with bananas, though." The Doctor hurried to the fridge and gently pushed Martha aside, shutting the door. "So I'll see you two up top, then." And then he hurried away.

Martha uttered an amused laugh. "He _does _work at top speed, doesn't he?"

"You get used to it," replied Rose with a bit of a silly smile on her face.

* * *

"But how do you travel in time?" asked Martha as the TARDIS bucked around, clinging desperately to the console. "What makes it go?"

"Oh, let's take the fun and mystery out of everything. Martha, you don't want to know. It just does. Hold on tight." The Doctor pushed one last button, and the TARDIS came to a stuttering halt that threw Martha onto the floor.

Rose, who had also been flung backward, called over, "You all right?"

"Never been better," called back Martha sarcastically, but she had a bit of a grin on her face as she got back up. "Blimey, Doctor, d'you have to pass a test to fly this thing?"

"Yes, and I failed it," replied the Doctor. "Now, make the most of it. I promised you one trip, and one trip only. (Here Martha and Rose exchanged a significant look.) Outside this door, brave new world."

"Where are we?" asked Martha.

Rose opened her mouth to answer, but the Doctor leaned down to pull her off the floor and whispered "Let it be a surprise" before turning back to Martha and saying, "Take a look. After you."

Martha stepped out into Shakespearean England, the Doctor and Rose close behind. "Oh, you are kidding me," she gasped. "You are so kidding me. Oh, my God, we did it. We traveled in time. Where are we? No, sorry. I've got to get used to this whole new language. _When_ are we?"

"Mind out," replied the Doctor, pulling Martha back as something was poured out a window. "Somewhere before the invention of the toilet, apparently. Sorry about that."

"I've seen worse. I've worked the late night shift A+E." Martha stepped gingerly around the puddle on the street, and the Doctor took Rose's arm a little hesitantly. She let him. "But are we safe? I mean, can we move around and stuff?"

"Why couldn't we?" replied Rose.

"It's like in the films. You step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race."

"Tell you what then, don't step on any butterflies," the Doctor said. "What have butterflies ever done to you?"

"What if, I don't know, what if I kill my grandfather?" asked Martha nervously.

"D'you plan to?" replied Rose.

"No."

"Well, then," said the Doctor cheerfully.

"Are you two in sync or something?" asked Martha, evidently amused.

"Pretty much," said Rose happily.

"And this is London?"

"I think so," replied the Doctor. "Round about 1599."

"Course, you wouldn't know for certain, seeing as last time you took us to see Elvis we ended up in London for the Coronation and I lost my face," mumbled Rose. The Doctor heard her and mumbled back something about how it was harder than it looked to properly fly a TARDIS.

"Oh, but hold on," Martha said worriedly. "Am I all right? I'm not going to get carted off as a slave, am I?"

"Why would they do that?" asked the Doctor bemusedly. Rose rolled her eyes.

"Not exactly white, in case you haven't noticed," said Martha pointedly.

"I'm not even human. Just walk about like you own the place. Works for me. Besides, you'd be surprised. Elizabethan England, not so different from your time. Look over there. They've got recycling, water cooler moment..."

"And the earth will be consumed by flame!" shouted a preacher standing by a church.

"Global warming," the Doctor added on. "Oh, yes, and entertainment. Popular entertainment for the masses. If I'm right, we're just down the river by Southwark, right next to-" He towed Rose around the corner, Martha following and looking slightly amused at Rose's annoyed expression. "Oh, yes, the Globe Theatre! Brand new. Just opened. Through, strictly speaking, it's not a globe, it's a tetradecagon. Fourteen sides. Containing the man himself."

"Whoa, you don't mean," gasped Martha, her eyes widening dramatically. Rose giggled. "Is Shakespeare in there?"

"Oh yes. Miss Jones, Miss Tyler, will you accompany me to the theatre?"

"Mister Smith, I will!" replied Martha excitedly.

"When you get home, you can tell everyone you've seen Shakespeare," laughed the Doctor.

"Bet she'd get sectioned," snorted Rose.

* * *

**Question: Favorite episode from Series Three?**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	9. Wife?

**Thank you all for the favorites, follows, and reviews! I'm going to use this time to mention my other story, which is up on my profile and is Rose/Tentoo with a bit of a twist. Hopefully me not saying much about it will prompt you to check it out. Go. Now. Shoo. Oh, wait, read this chapter first.**

* * *

"That's amazing! Just amazing. It's worth putting up with the smell. And those are men dressed as women, yeah?" Martha seemed beside herself with excitement.

"London never changes," replied the Doctor with a grin.

"Where's Shakespeare? I want to see Shakespeare. Author! Author! Do people shout that? Do they shout Author?"

"Author! Author!" shouted one of the men next to Martha, and soon the entire crowd had taken up the chant.

"Well, they do now," the Doctor muttered to Rose. Shakespeare stepped onto the stage, and the Doctor squeezed Rose's hand extremely tightly, a big grin on his face.

"_Ow!_"

"Shh, Rose, I want to hear what he's going to say! He's a genius._ The_ genius. The most human human there's ever been. Now we're going to hear him speak. Always he chooses the best words. New, beautiful, brilliant words."

"Doctor, if you don't stop squeezing my hand _right now-"_

"Ah, shut your big fat mouths!" shouted Shakespeare to laughs and raucous applause.

"Oh, well," said the Doctor with disappointment.

"You should never meet your heroes," Martha pointed out.

"I dunno, I thought Charles Dickens was a decent bloke," replied Rose.

"_No way,_" breathed Martha. "Did you _really-_"

"You've got excellent taste, I'll give you that. Oh, that's a wig." As he spoke, Shakespeare seemed more and more to Rose like a rather pompous person, but she decided to withhold that information from the Doctor, who was already rather let down. "I know what you're all saying. Loves Labour's Lost, that's a funny ending, isn't it? It just stops. Will the boys get the girls? Well, don't get your hose in a tangle, you'll find out soon. Yeah, yeah. All in good time. You don't rush a genius." Shakespeare paused, and to Rose it seemed almost as if his mind had gone blank. "When? Tomorrow night. The premiere of my brand new play. A sequel, no less, and I call it Loves Labour's Won."

"What?" mumbled the Doctor.

* * *

"I'm not an expert, but I've never heard of Loves Labour's Won," commented Martha as they headed out of the theater.

"Exactly," replied the Doctor. "The lost play. It doesn't exist, only in rumors. It's mentioned in lists of his plays but never ever turns up. And no one knows why."

"I have a feeling that if we stay long enough we'll find out," coaxed Rose.

"Have you got a mini-disc or something? We can tape it. We can flog it. Sell it when we get home and make a mint." As soon as Martha had said it she wished she hadn't, mostly because of the look on Rose's face.

"_What?"_ demanded Rose angrily. "You-"

The Doctor elbowed her. "No."

"That would be bad," said Martha sheepishly.

"Yeah, yeah," said the Doctor, and then in Rose's direction, "I _was _just going to give Martha a quick trip in the TARDIS, but I suppose we can stay a little longer."

Rose beamed. "Maybe we'll get to meet Shakespeare!"

"Yeah, but knowing our luck we're going to meet him under life-and-death circumstances," the Doctor reminded Rose, making her laugh.

* * *

They entered the Elephant, Martha looking around and exclaiming over every little 1599-ish detail, Rose trying not to laugh at Martha looking around and exclaiming over every little 1599-ish detail, and the Doctor looking at Rose, who looked extremely adorable when she was stifling laughter.

Finally, they ascended a staircase and reached the door of Shakespeare's room, the Doctor first, Rose second, and Martha at the end.

"And would you look at that _lighting!_" Martha finished, and Rose started laughing.

The Doctor poked her. "Oi, Rose, we're here."

Rose stopped laughing and blushed instead. "Sorry."

A maid coughed. "Excuse me, I need to go downstairs."

"Oh! Sorry," said Rose, hastily pressing herself against the wall so that the maid could pass.

The Doctor promptly hurried through the doorway. "Hello! Excuse me, not interrupting, am I? Mister Shakespeare, isn't it?"

"Oh, no," groaned Shakespeare. "No, no, no. Who let you in? No autographs. No, you can't have yourself sketched with me. And please don't ask where I get my ideas from. Thanks for the interest. Now be a good boy and shove-" His eyes suddenly lit on Rose, whose cheeks were a pleasant pink from her small fit of laughter and whose eyes were sparkling with mirth, which combined with how lovely she usually looked made her quite noticeable. He then noticed Martha as well, who he also found extremely attractive in her leather jacket and jeans. "Hey, nonny nonny. You ladies can sit right down here next to me. You two get sewing on them costumes. Off you go."

"Come on, lads. I think our William's found his new muse." Dolly hurried out of the room, the two men behind her.

"Sweet lady," said Shakespeare, smiling warmly at Rose.

Rose felt the Doctor's hand slide into hers as he said pointedly, "Rose is off limits."

"I can understand that," replied Shakespeare in a flirtatious manner. "Please, sit."

Martha sat next to Shakespeare. The Doctor sat down on Shakespeare's other side and had Rose sit down next to him.

"Such unusual clothes," said Shakespeare to Martha, losing interest in Rose now that she'd been declared off-limits. "So fitted."

"Er, verily. Forsooth. Egads!" replied Martha.

"No, no, don't do that. Don't," muttered the Doctor, before taking out his psychic paper and showing it to Shakespeare. "I'm Sir Doctor of Tardis, and this is my wife Dame Rose of the Powell Estate and our companion Martha Jones."

"_Wife?_" Rose mouthed to the Doctor, a fluttery feeling in her stomach. He ignored her.

"Interesting, that bit of paper," said Shakespeare. "It's blank."

"Oh, that's very clever. That proves it. Absolute genius." The Doctor seemed surprisingly happy that his ruse hadn't worked.

"No, it says so right there. Sir Doctor, Dame Rose, Martha Jones. It says so," said Martha suddenly.

"And I say it's blank." said Shakespeare with finality, as if his opinion entirely closed the matter.

"Psychic paper. Er, long story. Oh, I hate starting from scratch," sighed the Doctor.

"Psychic? Never heard that before and words are my trade." Shakespeare leaned back in his chair a bit. "Who are you exactly? More to the point, who is your delicious blackamoor lady?"

"What did you say?" asked Martha, sounding half-disbelieving and half-insulted.

"Oops. Isn't that a word we use nowadays? An Ethiop girl? A swarth? A Queen of Afric?"

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," muttered Martha.

"It's political correctness gone mad. Er, Martha's from a far-off land. Freedonia."

The door opened, and Shakespeare's attention was drawn from the small group. This enabled Rose to turn to the Doctor and hiss, "Why did you tell him we're married?"

"Oh, you know, you being really, really pretty, Shakespeare might want to kiss you or something of the sort and we really can't have that," replied the Doctor in a way that told Rose that there was a bit more to his reasoning.

"I'm really, really pretty?" she repeated softly, more color flooding her cheeks.

"Yeah," mumbled the Doctor awkwardly, and Rose realized that he was blushing too. She opened her mouth, unsure of what she was going to say, but-

"If it's the last thing I do, Love's Labours Won will never be played!" shouted Lynley, hurrying out of Shakespeare's room and bringing Rose back to earth with an unpleasant thump.

Shakespeare groaned.

"Well then, mystery solved," said Martha cheerfully. "That's Love's Labours Won over and done with. Thought it might be something more, you know, more mysterious."

Two screams came from the courtyard, and a third voice shouted "Help me!"

"Never, never say that, Martha," muttered the Doctor. "That's just asking for it."

* * *

They ran downstairs, the Doctor at the head and Rose behind, and when they got out there they saw that Lynley was staggering about and spitting out enormous amounts of water.

"It's that Lynley bloke," gasped Martha.

"What's wrong with him? Leave it to me. I'm a doctor." The Doctor hurried to Lynley, Martha on his heels, and Rose felt a rush of jealously at her ineptitude to do anything in this situation, as well as how well Martha was handling the situation. She stepped away, not wanting to see someone doing better than her, and hurried up the stairs feeling like an awful person-

A soft voice-the voice of the maid who had passed them in the corridor-was chanting from a niche in the hallway. Rose hovered uncertainly on the landing.

"Now to halt the vital part. Stab the flesh and stop the heart." Then there was a soft ripping sound. "Eternal sleep is thine."

Feeling a wave of panic, Rose sprinted back down the stairs and into the courtyard to see the Doctor talking in a low voice to Martha. Another rush of jealousy overwhelmed her, but it died away when the Doctor saw her and jumped up, completely forgetting about one (now slightly offended) Miss Martha Jones.

"Rose!" he said, giving her a hug. "I was worried when you didn't follow us down-what happened?"

Rose caught sight of the maid walking away, and said quietly, "I'll tell you later."

* * *

"I got you rooms, Sir Doctor. Miss Jones is just across the landing, and you and Lady Rose have that room next to it," Dolly Bailey told them.

"Poor Lynley," commented Shakespeare. "So many strange events. Not least of all, this land of Freedonia where a woman can be a doctor?"

"Where a woman can do what she likes," replied Martha.

"And you, Sir Doctor. How can a man so young have eyes so old?"

"I do a lot of reading," the Doctor responded.

"A trite reply. Yeah, that's what I'd do. But you are very lucky to love and be loved so strongly in return," said Shakespeare softly.

"What?" gasped Rose, color rising in her cheeks.

"I see it in the way you look at him. Very different from Miss Jones, who looks like she is surprised he exists. He is as much of a puzzle to her as he is to me."

"I think we should say goodnight," said Martha, hurrying away. The Doctor was looking at Rose with a silly grin on his face. She elbowed him. His grin vanished abruptly.

"I must work," said Shakespeare finally. "I have a play to complete. But I'll get my answers tomorrow, Doctor, and I'll discover more about you and why this constant performance of yours."

"All the world's a stage," said the Doctor.

"Hmm. I might use that. Good night, Doctor."

"Nighty night, Shakespeare."

* * *

"Here, Dolly Bailey gave me a candle," said Rose, sitting down on the edge of the bed and placing the candle on the end table. "So there's only one bed."

"...Yeah," replied the Doctor, lying down on the bed. "Rose, were you going to tell me something?"

"Oh, yeah! The maid, that one who passed us when we were going upstairs? I heard her chanting something. About stopping the heart or something like that."

"Ah, Rose, you always say exactly the right thing!" said the Doctor enthusiastically.

"What, about a maid chanting?"

"No, but, see, looks like witchcraft but it isn't. Chanting. Words. Powerful words! I should think about this more. Are you going to sit there all night?"

"Budge up," replied Rose, sliding into the bed, her shoulder touching the Doctor's. She flipped over onto her side. He flipped onto his. That didn't work, because now she and the Doctor were nose to nose. "So we're getting somewhere, then?"

"Yeah," said the Doctor happily. "Yeah. You've got something on your nose, right there." He wiped away whatever it was and let his arm fall so that it lay awkwardly across her shoulder. Rose suspected that the 'something on your nose' thing had been a ruse, but she wasn't complaining.

She was very tempted to kiss him right then. Screw the small bed, and the flickering candle, and the fact that they could never really be together. She loved this man, whether he was human or alien, sweet and silly and smart as he was. Her left hand rested lightly on one of his hearts. He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, and then he closed it again, reluctantly.

They lay there, staring into each other's eyes, until Rose drifted off to sleep.

* * *

**Question: After you watched "Silence In The Library" for the first time, did you think that Vashta Nerada would eat you every time you were standing in the dark? I wasn't _scared, _I was just a bit _wary. _Also I was never in a room without the lights on for two days straight, but that's beside the point.**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	10. Just as flirty as Captain Jack

**Sorry this took me so long! School started last Monday for me, and I had to deal with a whole lot of first-week-back readjusting. That said, hope you enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

A loud scream jerked the Doctor out of his half-asleep stupor, and he realized that Rose was tangled in his arms with a sleepy smile on her face.

"Sleeps like a log, she does," he muttered, and decided to make the very poor decision of carrying Rose all the way to the place where he'd heard the scream without waking her up. Mostly because of the fact that Rose was human and humans needed rest. Otherwise he would wake her up.

It had _absolutely nothing _to do with the fact that Rose's soft breaths were absolutely, positively, _the _most wonderful sound he had ever heard. Nothing to do with that. Nope. Nothing.

The Doctor carefully hurried down the corridor with Rose's cheek against his chest, carrying her bridal-style. Martha, who hadn't been encumbered by a sleeping blonde, had reached Shakespeare's room first, and he reached the room just as she was turning away from the window.

"Doctor?" she began, her voice slightly hysterical and threatening to become louder.

"Shh, you'll wake Rose," replied the Doctor. "Who screamed?"

"Dolly Bailey," said Martha shakily. "She's dead."

The Doctor attempted to put Rose down so that he could take a look at Dolly Bailey's body. She held on tighter.

"I already checked," Martha told him. "Her heart gave out. She died of fright."

"Martha, what did you see at the window?" asked the Doctor.

"A witch," Martha replied promptly.

"All right, then, I'm going to take Rose back to bed," said the Doctor. "Shakespeare, I'm incredibly sorry for your loss, but you're going to need to call a constable." His arms were starting to hurt from holding Rose. "I'm going to bed. We need to talk about this more in the morning."

Shakespeare nodded distantly.

* * *

The Doctor woke up at three in the morning with Rose in his arms.

_Again._

Normally he didn't make a habit of doing this much sleeping, but whenever he saw Rose at night she sort of spread her sleepiness through infectious yawns and stretches, not to mention the foggy look in her eyes.

Rose sighed in her sleep and curled into him, and he realized distantly that she was tightly gripping the shoulder of his suit jacket with her right hand (her left was still pressed lightly to his right heart) and his arms were around her.

_Cuddling._

He'd always hated that word. It sounded cutesy, and if there was one thing the Doctor had never liked it was anything cutesy. However, Rose Tyler was unbelievably adorable, and he had found out very quickly that his tolerance for adorability (which was a word he had coined on a particularly snowy day where there were lovely snowflakes in Rose's eyelashes and she was spinning around, trying to catch a snowflake on the tip of her tongue) had increased ever since he had first met her.

So, in short, the Doctor didn't mind cuddling with Rose. Actually, he rather enjoyed this sort of warm feeling of her head nestled on his shoulder and her hands curled on his shoulders and his arms at that wonderful curve of her waist just above her hip, and her sighing sleepily "Doctor?"

Uh oh.

The Doctor started to pull away, but Rose said something about not wanting to lose her new bicycle and he realized that she was still asleep. He closed his eyes, resting his cheek on Rose's hair. Every part of this human girl was deliciously soft.

* * *

Rose woke up at four in the morning in the Doctor's arms.

_Oh my._

She hadn't exactly anticipated this, the way the Doctor could have so many angles and be so soft to the touch at the same time, and she tried to move away at first (how on earth would he react to cuddling with someone who he believed he was in a platonic relationship with?) but the Doctor mumbled something unintelligible (she thought she caught the word "love") and moved his head so that his cheek was pushing into Rose's hair.

She closed her eyes, imagining that he could hold her like this forever, imagining that he was awake, that this was something they normally did, instead of a rare spark of happiness that he'd probably jump away from as soon as he woke up.

The Doctor moved slightly, and she lifted her head to look up at him. He smiled sleepily down at her. She yawned and placed her cheek on his shoulder.

He didn't move away. She drifted back off to sleep.

* * *

The Doctor and Rose both woke up at seven in the morning when Martha hammered on their door.

"Open up!" she shouted impatiently. "We need to talk!"

Rose was first to wake up, and she shifted so that she could yell back "Give us a minute!" This woke the Doctor up, and when he saw that Rose was also awake his expression sort of froze.

"Hello," he said softly.

"Hello," replied Rose.

"You're very warm," said the Doctor sleepily, closing his eyes again and brushing his lips against her hair. Rose then realized that the Doctor was only half-awake.

"Come _on, _Doctor," she said a trifle reluctantly. "We should probably get up and see what Martha wants."

"No," replied the Doctor resolutely, the effect slightly spoiled by the fact that he was talking into her hair. "I think I'd rather stay here, thanks. London in 1599 is rather cold in the mornings."

"You _do_ have to get up at some point, you know," Rose pointed out, delighted at the fact that they were cuddling and he wasn't pulling away.

_Does that mean-_

"Fine," muttered the Doctor. "Fine. I dislike you unreasonably right now, Rose Tyler."

Rose forced a smile as he pulled away and promptly fell off the bed, wanting to have stayed in his arms forever, breathing in the smell of aftershave and clean linen and something else that was just _him, _however cliche it sounded.

"Ow!" came the Doctor's voice from the floor. He sounded slightly more awake now.

* * *

"Oh, sweet Dolly Bailey," sighed Shakespeare ruefully. "She sat out three bouts of the plague in this place when we all ran like rats. But what could have scared her so? She had such enormous spirit."

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light," quoted the Doctor.

"I might use that," commented Shakespeare.

"You can't, it's someone else's."

"But the thing is," Martha cut in, "Lynley drowned on dry land, Dolly died of fright, and they were both connected to you."

"You're accusing me?" said Shakespeare, sounding rather affronted.

"No, but I saw a witch, big as you like, flying, cackling away, and you've written about witches," replied Martha.

"I have?" Shakespeare asked, bemused. "When was that."

"Not, not quite yet," the Doctor whispered to Martha.

"Peter Streete spoke of witches," added Shakespeare.

"Who's Peter Streete?" asked Martha before Rose could.

"Our builder. He sketched the plans to the Globe."

"The architect. Hold on." Rose could almost see the gears whirring in the Doctor's head. "The architect! The architect! The Globe! Come on!" He dashed out of the room, Martha and Shakespeare hot on his heels, and Rose (who was feeling a strong case of companion envy) followed at a bit of a slower pace.

* * *

"You're seeming quiet," commented Martha cheerfully as they hurried after the Doctor to the Globe Theater. "Everything all right?"

_No. _"Yeah, I'm fine," Rose replied gaily, avoiding Martha's gaze, because this woman was so much more competent than her and was evidently going to help out the Doctor so much more.

"You sure?" asked Martha.

"Yeah." Rose hurried to catch up with the Doctor, who slowed to a walk as soon as she drew level with him.

"Hello," he said cheerfully. "Isn't the weather brilliant?"

"Talking about the weather when we're in 1599?" interrupted Martha with a laugh, grabbing the Doctor's hand. Rose's stomach suddenly felt like spoiled milk in a plastic bag-squishy and weird and soft.

The Doctor took Rose's hand in his and drew circles on the palm with his index finger, replying to Martha, "Well, for London, this is extraordinary weather."

"He has a-" Rose's lips had barely formed the _p _in _point _when Martha cut in, "Still, I mean, _1599._ There is a sort of loveliness about it."

"It's very sunny," said the Doctor. "Don't you like sunny weather, Rose?"

Rose smiled slightly. "Yeah. Mum always used to take me on a picnic when I was really small, whenever it was sunny. She always used our special tablecloth as a picnic blanket, and when we had guests over it might have grass stains."

Martha nodded vaguely, and then she said, "My mum took me out for ice-creams, usually. Me and Leo and Tish."

Both girls looked up at the Doctor, expecting some sort of allusion to his childhood.

"Ooh, look at that! We're here!" he said brightly.

* * *

"The columns there, right?" the Doctor said happily, obviously in his element. "Fourteen sides. I've always wondered, but I never asked. Tell me, Will. Why fourteen sides?"

"It was the shape Peter Streete thought best, that's all," Shakespeare answered. "Said it carried the sound well."

"Fourteen," the Doctor muttered. "Why does that ring a bell? Fourteen."

"There's fourteen lines in a sonnet," Martha commented.

"So there is. Good point. Words and shapes following the same design. Fourteen lines, fourteen sides, fourteen facets. Oh, my head. Tetradecagon. Think, think, think! Words, letters, numbers, lines!"

Rose smiled.

"This is just a theater," said Shakespeare.

"Oh yeah, but a theater's magic, isn't it? You should know. Stand on this stage, say the right words with the right emphasis a the right time. Oh, you can make men weep, or cry with joy. Change them. You can change people's minds just with words in this place. But if you exaggerate that..."

"It's like your police box. Small wooden box with all that power inside," said Martha.

_Why didn't I think of that? _Rose thought bitterly. _Stupid incompetent me, I should've stayed in school._ She knew that Martha wasn't intentionally hurting her feelings, but it still stung that she wasn't the top companion anymore.

"Oh. Oh, Martha Jones, I like you," said the Doctor happily. Rose looked at the toes of her sneakers. "Tell you what, though. Peter Streete would know. Can I talk to him?"

"You won't get an answer," replied Shakespeare. "A month after finishing this place, lost his mind."

"Bet it was that maid again," said Rose conversationally to the Doctor.

"She might have something to do with it, yeah," the Doctor replied.

"What happened?" Martha asked Shakespeare.

"Started raving about witches, hearing voices, babbling. His mind was addled."

"Where is he now, though?" Rose asked.

"Bedlam," replied Shakespeare, a note of fear in his voice as he said the name of the place.

"What's Bedlam?" asked Martha.

"Bethlem Hospital. The madhouse."

* * *

They dashed up and down streets until Rose tripped on a loose cobble and fell flat on her face. The Doctor, who was in front of her, heard her fall down and whirled around, rushing to her as she sat up.

"You all right?" he asked worriedly.

"Just my pride," replied Rose.

"You've got a bruise," said the Doctor. "On your forehead."

"I'll manage," said Rose, blushing a little bit. "It's okay."

"We're not going to run anymore," said the Doctor. "I don't want you to fall on your face again."

"It's a loose cobble, Doctor, I'm _fine," _said Rose pointedly. "Really."

"I was worried," said the Doctor, taking her hands and pulling her up. "Not many things worry me."

"What about Daleks?"

"That's different," muttered the Doctor as they broke into a run again.

"Cybermen?"

"Them too."

"Slitheen?"

"Um." Rose laughed triumphantly. The Doctor turned to call to Shakespeare and Martha (who had both been talking about something that Rose had missed, but she now assumed it was somehow romantic), "Come on, we can all have a good flirt later!"

"Is that a promise, Doctor?" replied Shakespeare.

"Oh my god, you're just as flirty as Captain Jack!" Rose giggled.

"Oh, fifty seven academics just punched the air. Now move!" shouted the Doctor, pulling Rose along as they dashed up and down the streets of Southwark.

* * *

**Question: Do you think it's possible to ship Ten/Martha? I really don't, but to each his own.**

**I think that Rose would be a bit jealous of Martha, because Martha is really very competent and intelligent.**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	11. Butterflies doing the can-can

**Lookit me, two chapters in one day! _Well, _the first one was in the works for quite a bit, but it's still nice. Plus, this chapter-**

**Ssh, spoilers...**

* * *

"Does my Lord Doctor wish some entertainment while he waits?" asked the keeper of Bethlem Hospital with utter seriousness and a little bit of a laugh in his voice. The Doctor disliked him at once. "I'd whip these madmen. They'll put on a good show for you. Mad dog in Bedlam."

"No, I don't!" replied the Doctor emphatically.

"Well, wait here, my lords, while I make him decent for the ladies." The keeper hurried off. Rose muttered some near-inaudible comments (which only the Doctor heard due to the fact that he was standing the closest to her) about his parentage, personality, and certain things he enjoyed doing to animals.

Martha turned on Shakespeare to protest this unfair treatment of the patients-no, _inmates-_and the Doctor turned to Rose. "Rather inventive, that. Remind me to call on you when I want to insult someone."

Rose smiled slightly. "When I was ten I looked up all the insults I could think of, 'cause-" A bit of a blush spread from the bridge of her nose to the apples of her cheeks. "Well, nothing really, I s'pose."

"Come off it, willing research at the age of ten?" teased the Doctor. "There had to be some _extreme _motivation for anyone to do that at that age."

"There was," Rose said very softly.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You can't do that."

"Do what?"

"You can't say that there wasn't a reason for willing research and then say that there was and then say that there wasn't again," said the Doctor in one breath.

Rose giggled, her nose wrinkling adorably and her tongue poking out of her mouth in a wonderful smile.

"No, really! What's so funny about that?"

"Nothing."

"Is that your new favorite word now?"

"No."

"Tell me one or the other, how's that?"

Rose's smile vanished abruptly and her blush grew more prominent. "You choose which one."

"All right. Why'd you laugh when I told you that you couldn't say that there wasn't a reason for willing research and then say that there was and then say that there wasn't again?" asked the Doctor, just as fast as he had before.

Rose laughed reluctantly before asking, "Do I have to be honest?"

"Yes."

"Why does it matter, Doctor?"

"Because I like knowing the people I travel with. And I have a feeling that if you're avoiding the subject so diligently then it's something important."

"Please don't laugh."

"Why would I laugh if it's important to you?" asked the Doctor quite seriously.

There was a sudden silence as Rose gave the Doctor a wonderfully glowing look that made him feel like a colony of butterflies had landed in his stomach and in his hearts. She broke it by saying timidly, "You're really cute when you talk that fast."

The butterflies started doing the can-can. The Doctor smiled widely at Rose. Rose smiled nervously back.

He leaned down a bit, certain that he had found the right moment. Rose's lips were the color of the grasses on Gallifrey. He was surprised that she'd found the time to put on lipstick. His hand was resting on her shoulder now, his lips two inches from hers-

"This way, my lord!" shouted a voice. The pair startled apart, and the Doctor silently cursed that damned keeper and his future descendants. Be they man or animal.

* * *

"They can be dangerous, my lord," said the keeper. "Don't know their own strength."

The Doctor _really _didn't trust himself to say anything right now, so he let Rose say sharply, "Might help if you don't whip them. Get out, will ya?"

_He had been about to kiss Rose. _Damn it, _why _couldn't he have just gone ahead with it? He already knew how Rose felt about him-

_She's a human,_ he thought automatically, hating his mind for the truth it brought to his attention. _She's a human and you're going to watch her grow old and die and she'll leave you. She'll leave you, whether she wants to or not._

_The love of your life is going to leave you._

Startled by his newfound revelation in the space of two seconds, the Doctor stumbled to the right and hit his head against the wall. "Ow!"

Rose hurried over. "Are you all right?" she asked anxiously, raising her cool hand to his forehead. "I know something's off when _you _hit your head, 'superior reflexes' and all that."\

"Fine," mumbled the Doctor, feeling a wave of dizziness that had nothing to do with walking into a wall. Gently, he raised his own hand to his forehead and took Rose's hand in his before lowering their joined hands, turning to the man curled in a ball on the floor and saying apprehensively, "Peter? Peter Streete?"

"He's the same as he was. You'll get nothing out of him," commented Shakespeare.

The Doctor ignored Shakespeare and apprehensively touched Peter Streete's shoulder, saying, "Peter, I'm the Doctor. Go into the past. One year ago. Let your mind go back. Back to when everything was fine and shining. Everything that happened in this year since happened to somebody else. It was just a story. A winter's tale. Let go. That's it. That's it, just let go." He lay Peter down on his cot. "Tell me the story, Peter. Tell me about the witches."

Peter began to talk in a voice that sounded hoarse from screaming. "Witches spoke to Peter. In the night, they whispered. They whispered. Got Peter to build the Globe to their design. Their design! The fourteen walls. Always fourteen. When the work was done they snapped poor Peter's wits."

"Where did Peter _see_ the witches? Where in the city? Peter, tell me. You've got to tell me, where were they?" demanded the Doctor.

"All Hallows Street," mumbled Peter.

"Too many words," rasped a green-skinned crone from the corner.

"What the hell?" gasped Martha.

Instead of shrieking like a damsel in distress, Rose stepped directly in front of the Doctor as if she was trying to protect him. The thought that her desire to protect him was by now instinct made the butterflies in the Doctor's stomach reappear inopportunely, can-canning with a vengeance.

"Just one touch of the heart," hissed the crone.

"No!" shouted the Doctor, stepping around Rose toward Peter Streete, but the architect of the Globe had already died at the touch of a finger.

"Witch! I'm seeing a witch!" gasped Shakespeare.

"Thanks, Shakespeare, that's really helpful," snapped Rose.

"Now, who would be next, hmm? Just one touch. Oh, oh, I'll stop your frantic hearts. Poor, fragile mortals."

"Let us out!" shouted Martha. "Let us out!"

The Doctor was ready to tell Martha that that wasn't going to work, but instead Rose tapped Martha on the shoulder and whispered something in her ear that made the other woman stop shaking the bars of the gate relentlessly. He made a mental note to ask his companion what she'd said.

"Who will die first, hmm?" asked the crone.

"Well, if you're looking for volunteers," replied the Doctor, stepping forward.

"No!" shouted Martha and Rose at the same time.

"Doctor, can you stop her?" asked Shakespeare.

"No mortal has power over me," the crone rasped.

"Oh, but there's a power in words. If I can find the right one. If I can just know you," said the Doctor.

"None on Earth has knowledge of us," the crone added.

"Right, yeah, because we didn't get that when you said that the _first _time," Rose muttered.

The Doctor fought a laugh (it would have been _dreadfully _unprofessional) and replied to the crone, "Then it's a good thing I'm here. Now think, think, think. Humanoid female, uses shapes and words to channel energy. Ah! Fourteen! That's it! Fourteen! The fourteen stars of the Rexel planetary configuration! Creature, I name you Carrionite!"

The Carrionite screamed, a horrible shrill sound that was lost in the screams of the other prisoners, and vanished.

"What did you do?" Martha asked.

"I named her," the Doctor responded. "The power of a name. That's old magic."

"But there's no such thing as magic," said Martha a bit stubbornly.

_"Well,_ it's just a different sort of science. You lot, you chose mathematics. Given the right string of numbers, the right equation, you can split the atom. Carrionites use words instead," said the Doctor conversationally.

"For what?" asked Rose.

"The end of the world."

* * *

"The Carrionites disappeared way back at the dawn of the universe," the Doctor told Rose, Martha, and Shakespeare once they were back at the Elephant. "Nobody was sure if they were real or legend."

"Well, I'm going for real," muttered Shakespeare.

"So what are they here for?" Rose asked.

"A new empire on Earth. A world of bones and blood and witchcraft," replied the Doctor.

"But how?" asked Martha.

The Doctor turned to Shakespeare. "I'm looking at the man with the words."

"Me?" demanded Shakespeare indignantly. "But I've done nothing."

"Hold on, though," said Martha suddenly. "What were you doing last night, when that Carrionite was in the room?"

"Finishing the play," Shakespeare replied.

"What happens on the last page?" asked the Doctor sharply.

"The boys get the girls. They have a bit of a dance. It's all as funny and thought provoking as usual. Except those last few lines. Funny thing is, I don't actually remember writing them," Shakespeare mumbled thoughtfully.

"That's it. They used you. They gave you the final words like a spell, like a code. Love's Labours Won. It's a weapon. The right combination of words, spoken at the right place, with the shape of the Globe as an energy converter! The play's the thing!" shouted the Doctor, hastily tacking on, "And yes, you can have that."

"We need to get to All Hallows Street," said Rose.

"Shakespeare, do you have a map?" the Doctor asked, turning away from his companions.

Shakespeare hurried to his desk and dug around in a drawer for a few seconds before coming up with an almost useless map. The Doctor, Rose, and Martha clustered around it.

"All Hallows Street," muttered the Doctor. "There it is. Martha, Rose, we'll track them down. Will, you get to the Globe. Whatever you do, stop that play."

"I'll do it," Shakespeare replied. "All these years I've been the cleverest man around. Next to you, I know nothing."

"Oh, don't complain," Martha sighed.

"I'm not. It's marvelous. Good luck, Doctor," said Shakespeare with a hint of cheerfulness.

"Good luck, Shakespeare," the Doctor replied. "Once more unto the breach."

"I like that," Shakespeare commented as the Doctor pulled Rose out of the room with Martha close behind. "Wait a minute, that's one of mine."

The Doctor poked his head back around the door and shouted, "Oh, just shift!"

* * *

"All Hallows Street, but which house?" the Doctor mumbled.

"The thing is, though," Martha said suddenly, "am I missing something here? The world didn't end in 1599. It just didn't. Look at me. I'm living proof."

"Oh, how to explain the mechanics of the infinite temporal flux? I know. Back to the Future. It's like Back to the Future," the Doctor replied shortly.

"The film?" Martha asked.

Rose snorted. "No, the book. What century are you from, Martha?"

"Oi! I'm not sure anymore what century I'm from, seeing as I'm too busy being useful and actually _asking questions, _unlike some people-"

"That doesn't even make any sense!"

"NOT NOW!" the Doctor shouted. Both women looked guilty."You two can have an argument later, because right now the fate of the world is in our hands."

"Again," Rose muttered, and then, "Sorry, Martha."

"'S fine," Martha replied.

"Martha, Marty McFly goes back and changes history-" began the Doctor.

"And he starts fading away. Oh my God, am I going to fade?" gasped Martha.

"You and the entire future of the human race. It ends right now in 1599 if we don't stop it. But which house?" the Doctor asked.

A door seemed to open by itself.

"I'm guessing that one," said Rose.

* * *

"I take it we're expected," said the Doctor casually.

"Oh, I think Death has been waiting for you a very long time," came the soft voice of the beautiful maid. Rose flinched.

"Right then, it's my turn," said Martha confidently. "I know how to do this. I name thee Carrionite!"

It didn't work.

"What did I do wrong?" demanded Martha. "Was it the finger?"

"The power of a name works only once," replied the maid. "Observe. I gaze upon this bag of bones and now I name thee Martha Jones!" Martha fell backward into the Doctor's arms. Rose bit back an exclamation, but the maid-no, the _Carrionite-_ turned on her and recited, "Simple mind of simple prose, ever loyal, simple _Rose."_

The Doctor dropped Martha and scooped Rose into his arms as her legs gave out. "What did you do to them?" he demanded, so wrapped up in the Carrionite that he didn't feel Rose's head snuggle into his shoulder.

"Only sleeping, alas. It's curious. The name has less impact. They're somehow out of their time. And as for you, Sir Doctor-"

Nothing happened.

"Fascinating," said the Carrionite almost conversationally. "There is no name. Why would a man hide his title in such despair?"

"The Carrionites vanished," said the Doctor, changing the subject abruptly. "Where did you go?"

"The Eternals found the right word to banish us into deep darkness," the Carrionite replied coolly.

"And how did you escape?" asked the Doctor.

"New words," hissed the Carrionite. "New and glittering, from a mind like no other."

"Shakespeare," muttered the Doctor.

"His son perished," the Carrionite whispered. "The grief of a genius. Grief without measure. Madness enough to allow us entrance."

"How many of you?" asked the Doctor.

"Just the three," said the Carrionite calmly. "But the play tonight shall restore the rest. Then the human race will be purged as pestilence. And from this world we will lead the universe back into the old ways of blood and magic."

"Hmm," said the Doctor, his casual tone slightly spoiled by the fact that he was holding the most precious thing in the universe-his universe-in his arms. It was really ridiculous the way Rose's breath tickling his neck made his pulses quicken. "Busy schedule. But first you've got to get past me."

"Oh, that should be a pleasure, considering my enemy has such a handsome shape. " The Carrionite leaned over Rose to wrap her arms around the Doctor's neck.

"Now, that's one form of magic that's definitely not going to work on me, especially considering I've already got someone extremely special in my arms," said the Doctor with slight annoyance, moving one of his arms so as to better support Rose.

"Oh, we'll see," laughed the Carrionite gaily, and the Doctor heard the _snip _of scissors.

"What did you do?" he demanded.

"Souvenir," replied the Carrionite cheerfully.

"Well, give it back," said the Doctor.

The Carrionite flew neatly backwards out of the window.

"Well, that's just cheating," muttered the Doctor, annoyed.

"Behold, Doctor," said the Carrionite. "Men to Carrionites are nothing but puppets."

Carefully, she attached his hair to a wooden doll. The Doctor felt Rose stir, but thankfully the Carrionite didn't see it, because Rose (unlike Martha) had the good enough sense to keep her eyes shut.

"Now, you might call that magic. I'd call that a DNA replication module," the Doctor pointed out.

"What use is your science now?" sneered the Carrionite, stabbing the doll. The Doctor felt a pain in one of his hearts and fell backward, Rose jerking fully awake at the sudden movement. The Carrionite, however, was already flying away by the time he managed to sit up, Rose's face an inch from his.

"Only got one heart working," he gasped. Rose's eyes were fixed on his own, and the butterflies returned once again, because he could swear that the secrets of the universe lay in those beautiful eyes of hers. _I've got it bad, _he thought ruefully. "How do you people cope? I've got to get the other one started. Hit me! Hit me on the chest!" Rose obliged reluctantly. "Now on the back!"

As she did so, the Doctor suddenly realized that she was sitting on his lap with her legs wrapped around his waist, and when she hit him on the back and his heart started up again her arms were suddenly wrapped rather intimately around him-until she moved one of her hands to his cheek.

Relentless. Butterfly. Can-can.

"What are you two doing _that _for?" came Martha's indignant voice, jerking the Doctor from his reverie. He reluctantly stood up. Rose did the same, and for a moment the Doctor sort of stood there stupidly until Martha shouted, "Come _on, _we've got to get to the Globe before the Carrionite!"

The Doctor, eloquent as always, responded gracefully with "Globe!" and then "Carrionite!" and finally "Right!"

* * *

"We're going the wrong way!" shouted Martha and Rose together as the Doctor yanked them both in the right direction.

"No, we're not!" shouted the Doctor in response, nearly running into a dead end. Did he say right direction? He meant wrong direction. "We're going the wrong way!"_  
_

They ran all the way to the Globe (and past a very happy preacher shouting "I told thee so!"), and the Doctor cried "Stage door!" as they ran desperately _around_ it as well.

* * *

**Question: Were you heartbroken when Donna left? I miss her SO much whenever I watch the Tenth Doctor. I think after someone like Rose he needed someone who didn't fancy him, and who was also willing to call him a Martian once in a while.**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	12. Something in Rose's galaxy eyes

**Since it's the weekend, I'm updating MUCH more frequently than I was previously. However, you probably won't get that many chapters from me during weekdays from now on.**

* * *

"Stop the play," said the Doctor in exasperation upon entering backstage and seeing Shakespeare waking up in a chair. "I think that was it. Yeah, I said, stop the play!"

"I hit my head," Shakespeare mumbled in weak response.

"Yeah, don't rub it, you'll go bald." Upon hearing more screams from the stage, the Doctor added a hasty "I think that's my cue!" and dashed away, Rose and Martha pulled along with him and Shakespeare following.

The Carrionite who had attempted to murder the Doctor had let loose a flood of more Carrionites, and said Carrionites circled the stage before flying up into the sky.

"Come on, Will!" the Doctor shouted. "History needs you!"

"But what can I do?" Shakespeare cried in response, flapping his hands about a bit.

_Useless in a crisis. Martha was right, you should never meet your heroes. However, I doubt he's ever really experienced an alien invasion-he wasn't exactly supposed to. _"Reverse it!" yelled the Doctor over the cries and screams of the common folk.

"How am I supposed to do that?" Shakespeare yelled back.

"The shape of the Globe gives words power, but you're the wordsmith, the one true genius. The only man clever enough to do it."

"But what words? I have none ready!"

"You're Will Shakespeare!" Rose shouted, yanking her hand out of the Doctor's and grasping Shakespeare's shoulders, giving him the desperate look that had melted the Doctor's heart many times over. "You're brilliant! You can do this! The words, they come, don't they? The Doctor _said _words of power, the right sound, shape, rhythm-improvise!"

_Oh my god, _thought the Doctor, and his hearts swelled with pride. _My Rose, all grown up._

"Close up this din of hateful, dire decay, decomposition of your witches' plot," roared Shakespeare. "You thieve my brains, consider me your toy. My sweet Rose Tyler tells me I am not!"

Rose cheered and planted a kiss on Shakespeare's cheek. The Doctor's pride was abruptly replaced with jealousy.

"No!" screeched the Carrionite, her voice clearly audible even over the din of the crowd. "Words of power!"

"Foul Carrionite spectres, cease your show! Between the points-" Here Shakespeare glanced to the Doctor.

"761390!" shouted the Doctor, taking this opportunity to grab Rose's hands and pull her into his arms. She gave a surprised little gasp.

"Seven six one three nine oh! Banished like a tinker's cuss, I say to thee-"

There was a dead silence, before Martha's eyes lit up and she shouted, "Expelliarmus!"

"Expelliarmus!" echoed Rose and the Doctor.

"Expelliarmus!" Shakespeare roared.

"Good old JK!" cried the Doctor, twirling Rose around and reveling in the startled (but clearly elated) giggles that she uttered.

A tornado appeared just above them, and the Doctor pulled Rose extremely close, both of them staring upwards as the Carrionites-and the play-were sucked away.

"There it goes," said Rose wistfully. "Love's Labours Won."

The sky cleared with a flash and a bang, and after a brief silence the audience began to cheer.

"They think it was all special effects?" Martha mumbled incredulously.

"Your effect is special indeed," Shakespeare bantered flirtily.

"It's not your best line," Martha laughed.

* * *

"We can sleep in the TARDIS tonight, if you wanted," commented the Doctor as they headed back to the Elephant. "We should stay for another day, though, relax, explore-the Globe's prop store is brilliant."

"Oh, I like the Elephant," Rose replied. "It's really nice, you know, and seeing as we rarely visit specific past times and places twice I'd like to sleep there."

The Doctor remembered the soft feeling of Rose in his arms and decided that staying in the Elephant was "rather a good idea, actually."

* * *

He didn't sleep at all that night. Not because he was troubled (quite the opposite in fact; as soon as they had both slid into the bed Rose had cuddled up to him and closed her eyes, enabling him to pull her into his arms), simply because he had caught up on pretty much all the sleep that he would need for quite a while.

Instead, he talked in a soft, low voice to Rose, telling her all the things he would never dare to tell her when she was awake. He didn't say out loud that he loved her, not _yet, _because he wanted to say it out loud and make it real for the first time when she was fully awake, just to see the look in her eyes. But he did tell her about his children and about Susan and about his wife.

"She was lovely," he said simply at precisely 4:03 in the morning. Rose shifted a bit in his arms, and when she didn't open her eyes he continued to talk. "I didn't love her, not the way that I realize now I _can, _but I loved her as I might a close friend. Our match was made due to status, and I made myself love her because I thought that that was the way it was supposed to be. I wonder sometimes if that's why you clung to Mickey. He's stable. I'm not. I'll never be."

Rose snuggled into his shoulder and made a little _hmm _sound, looping her leg around his waist. The Doctor kissed the top of her head and continued to talk into her hair.

"You have amazing eyes, did you know that?" he told her, his words slightly muffled by Rose's lovely tresses. "Sometimes I can see _galaxies _in your eyes. And they've been there for a long time, I think, because when I told you to run in the basement of the department store I saw constellations I hadn't seen since I was a boy in Gallifrey."

"Your eyes are wonderful," said Rose softly. The Doctor jumped a bit, but her arms had moved to rest on his shoulders and her head snuggled into his chest. "I see the burdens of the universe in your eyes, and it scares me, a bit, but it's beautiful too."

"How long have you been awake?" he asked.

"Since you said that your wife was lovely," she replied. "You need to talk more softly if you don't want me to wake up."

The Doctor laughed. "I'll keep that in mind, thanks," he said, scrambling for familiar and platonic terrain, but Rose eliminated all possibilities of that by saying something that made him start slightly.

"Why aren't you able to talk to me like this when you know I'm awake?" she mumbled, a bit of hurt in her tone. "Why can't we be like this, right now?"

"I-Rose, it's hard to tell _anyone _these things. It's a lot that I'm telling you it when I think you're asleep. I want to tell you everything, and I will, but there's a lot about my past that you don't know and I-" The Doctor stopped himself from saying that he was afraid he would lose her, but something in Rose's galaxy eyes told him that she'd guessed that that was what he would've said.

She closed her eyes and snuggled into him, her hands moving to rest over his hearts, and he let his arms encircle her and reveled in how wonderfully simple things were at night.

* * *

The Doctor and Rose spent the beginning of the next day messing about in the backstage of the Globe Theater.

"Rose, look at this!" shouted the Doctor (who was wearing a neck brace that he planned to give to Shakespeare) enthusiastically, holding up a skull he'd found in the prop store.

"Can't," came Rose's voice from behind a curtain. "I'm trying on dresses. I might bring some back to the TARDIS. You never know, we might end up in the 16th century and need to get dressed up for a party, and you're severely lacking when it comes to clothes for girls."

"No, Rose, but it looks a bit like a Sycorax skull!"

"_What?_" Rose's voice was now incredulous, and she came scrambling out of the dressing room. "Let me see!"

The Doctor was suddenly very much aware of the fact that Rose was not entirely laced up, and the dress was revealing quite a bit more than it was intended to.

It was pink, remarkably so, and while on others it might look garish (on Martha it would have made her look like a bit of a tart) it nicely accentuated certain..._features _and ended exactly at the floor, fitting Rose perfectly. She was already wearing the intended corset so that the dress would fit her, and her hair was tied in a ponytail to keep the laces and hooks from catching in her hair. The dress, which would have had lovely long sleeves that puffed out at the shoulder, was falling down so that the sleeves covered the top half of her hands and revealed her shoulders, the square neckline dipping alarmingly low.

And yet Rose, ever oblivious, had _no idea _how alluring she looked with a flushed excitement resonating from her, the effort of running in a big skirt having a noticeable effect and reddening her cheeks and nose a bit.

The Doctor, ever eloquent, replied, "Gah."

Rose somehow didn't notice the flush rising in the Doctor's neck and hurried to him, taking the (now completely forgotten) skull from the Doctor's (considerably slack) hands. "It _does _look a bit like a Sycorax skull. How do you suppose it got here?"

For once in his life, the Doctor decided that being redundant was the safest option. Or_ maybe _the low neckline of Rose's dress required completely _all_ of his attention. "Gah."

Rose gave a little gasp and hastily pulled her dress up, but the damage had been done. The Doctor blushed. "Sorry. You were...rather breathtaking there, actually."

She smiled radiantly and twirled around, the skirt billowing prettily around her. "You think this one's a keeper, then? Shall I ask Shakespeare if we can keep it?"

"Diffi, uh, deffni, um, definitely a keeper," mumbled the Doctor, once again at a loss for words. Rose seemed to have a talent for doing that to him.

* * *

"Good props store back there," said the Doctor cheerfully, his bearings regained now that he wasn't backstage and Rose was behind him. "I'm not sure about this though," he added, holding up the skull. "Reminds me of a Sycorax."

"Sycorax," said Shakespeare thoughtfully. "Nice word. I'll have that off you as well."

"I should be on ten percent," the Doctor informed him. "How's your head?"

"Still aching," replied the Bard ruefully.

"Here, he got you this," said Rose suddenly, stepping in front of the Doctor and carefully removing the neck brace from his neck, which meant wrapping her arms around his neck in that _ridiculously _lovely pink dress.

The Doctor very abruptly forgot everything in the universe but Rose Tyler and her eyes and the way the dress clung to her...softer parts.

The spell broke, however, when Rose finished removing the neck brace and turned away from the Doctor in a swish of fabric, handing the neck brace to Shakespeare. The Doctor noted with satisfaction that she made no attempt at intimate contact like she had with him. The thought of the fact that Rose took even the smallest chance to wrap her arms round his neck made his hearts quicken slightly.

"Neck brace," he said happily, confidence regained. "Wear that for a few days till it's better, although you might want to keep it. It suits you."

"What about the play?" Martha asked.

"Gone. I looked all over. Every single copy of Love's Labour's Won went up in the sky," said the Doctor.

"My lost masterpiece," Shakespeare sighed.

"You could write it up again," pointed out Rose.

"Yeah, better not, Will," said the Doctor. "There's still power in those words. Maybe it should best stay forgotten."

"Oh, but I've got new ideas. Perhaps it's time I wrote about fathers and sons, in memory of my boy, my precious Hamnet," said Shakespeare wistfully.

"Hamnet?" said Martha, not half incredulous.

"That's him," replied Shakespeare.

"_Hamnet?"_ said Rose, a bit of a giggle in her voice, walking up to the Doctor and standing next to him.

"What's wrong with that?" asked Shakespeare bemusedly.

"_Anyway_," said the Doctor, cutting off what might have turned into an infinite loop, "time we were off. I've got a nice attic in the Tardis where this lot-" -here he held up the Carrionites imprisoned in a crystal ball- "-can scream for all eternity, and I've got to take Martha back to Freedonia."

"You mean travel on through time and space," said Shakespeare simply.

"You-_what_?" gasped the Doctor.

"You're from another world like the Carrionites, and Martha is from the future. It's not hard to work out," said Shakespeare proudly.

"That's incredible. _You_ are incredible," said the Doctor happily.

Rose stood on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear, "Guessing that your hero fulfills at least _some _of your expectations?"

"Quite," replied the Doctor.

"We're alike in many ways, Doctor," said Shakespeare. "Martha, let me say goodbye to you in a new verse. A sonnet for my Dark Lady. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate-"

"Will!" came a voice, and two of the actors the Doctor recognized from the first (and last) production of Loves Labour's Won entered from the street.

"Will, you'll never believe it. She's here! She's turned up!" shouted the second actor excitedly.

"We're the talk of the town. She heard about last night. She wants us to perform it again," said the first man.

"Who?" asked Martha.

"Her Majesty. She's here," said the first man excitedly.

A fanfare sounded, and Queen Elizabeth the First entered the Globe Theater flanked by two pikemen.

"Queen Elizabeth the First!" said the Doctor delightedly.

"Doctor?" said Queen Elizabeth.

"What?" said the Doctor, nonplussed.

"My sworn enemy."

"What?" said the Doctor, affronted.

"Off with his head!"

"What?" said the Doctor, indignant.

"Oh, for the love of-forget about _what, _let's just run!" said Rose with frustration. "Damn it, I can't run in this skirt-"

"Here," said the Doctor breathlessly, scooping Rose into his arms. She pressed a daring kiss of thanks to his cheek and he nearly swooned. _Thank you, future me, for whatever you did to upset Good Queen Bess._

"See you, Will, and thanks!" Martha called over her shoulder as the three of them-well, the two of them really, seeing as Rose was being carried bridal-style with a bit of a grin on her face-dashed for the TARDIS.

* * *

"Stop in the name of the Queen!" bellowed one of the pikemen.

"Blimey, what'd you do to upset her?" Rose asked with a giddy laugh.

"How should I know? Haven't even met her yet. That's time travel for you. Still, can't wait to find out." The Doctor awkwardly opened the door with one arm, careful to keep on supporting Rose with the other, and hastily ushered Martha in. "That's something to look forward to. Ooo!" He did an awkward sort of jump into the TARDIS, shutting the door behind him. The sound of an arrow lodging into the door made Martha jump a bit.

The Doctor carefully and reluctantly set Rose down, surprised but pleased when she stood on her tiptoes to gently smooth down his hair and it was revealed that under the dress she was still wearing sneakers. "So, where shall we go next? Any ideas?"

* * *

**Question: Do you think that the episodes are moving too slowly, or do you like the Ten/Rose fluff I insert in places?**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	13. None Why do you ask?

**Aaand here you go! (Took me long enough.)**

* * *

"Just one trip," the Doctor said sternly to Martha. "That's what I said. One trip in the TARDIS, and then home. Although I suppose we could stretch the definition. Take one trip into past, one trip into the future. How do you fancy that?"

Rose shifted on the console chair and stared at her white sneakers, barely visible underneath petticoats and a pink skirt. Evidently the Doctor was hesitant to leave such a competent companion behind.

"No complaints from me," Martha replied cheerfully.

"How about a different planet?" asked the Doctor.

"Can we-" began Martha, but suddenly Rose stood up and said, "You know what, I think I'm going to go down to my room. I'm a bit knackered from all the running about and all, and-"

"I forgot to tell you," said the Doctor sheepishly. "I sort of put your bedroom in a time pocket."

"_What?" _gasped Rose incredulously. "How-you-_what?_"

"A time pocket. It's a second out of sync with the rest of the TARDIS. I created a laser that can put things in time pockets and now I have to figure out how to reverse it, because I was...looking for something in your bedroom and then the whole thing blew up and knocked me into the hallway."

"Why were you in my bedroom in the first place?" Rose demanded indignantly.

"Beside the point," the Doctor replied, a blush rising at the back of his neck. "Look, I _really _don't want you sleeping in another companion's room, it's sort of an insult to their memory-"

"So _I'm _insulting, is that it?" snapped Rose, flushing an angry red.

"Yes-no-that isn't it!" replied the Doctor. "It was _their place, _and it isn't right to-to treat it like some sort of hotel room!"

"That's right, but it's perfectly okay to go into _my place_ whenever you want to, isn't it?" Rose shouted.

"I don't know! I'm making a muddle of this all, Rose, what I'm trying to tell you is that your bedroom is in a time pocket and you'll have to stay in my room for the time being!" shouted the Doctor back.

"Fine!" Rose yelled, and stomped down the stairs.

_Waait for it..._

Rose stomped back up the stairs and shouted, "Which room is it?" her face still an angry brick red.

"Down, left, right, left, zigzag, polka-dot, jump the piranhas, left," replied the Doctor coolly. "Can't miss it."

Rose blinked.

"The TARDIS can lead you to it," said the Doctor impatiently. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to do some vital research in the library."

"Right," said Martha in annoyance as the Doctor followed Rose down the TARDIS stairs, "I'm just going to go to my room, then, because apparently we're going to go somewhere later, right? Hello!"

* * *

"Romance," said the Doctor conversationally to the ceiling of the library where he knew the TARDIS was listening, "is a complex thing, which is why I shall rather need your help." He sorted through the many shelves of the library, scanning book spines. "Raxacoricofallapatorius...Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer...aha!" He held up a rather thick 51st century book called _Females__ for Dummies _that Jack had left in the TARDIS. "This might be useful."

About fifty percent of the book turned out to be a rather vivid description of every single female alien in the galaxy and the right and wrong way to go about seducing them, as well as which ones it would be wisest to stay away from. The Doctor rolled his eyes.

However, there _was _a section about humans that looked promising.

_Chapter Seventy-Two: Humans and How To Woo Them _read the chapter title. The Doctor had to smirk a bit at the chapter title.

_Female humans are a complex breed._ ("You're telling me," muttered the Doctor.) The_ safest way to go when the object of your affections is a human is to do things what they might call "the old-fashioned way."_

_A: Be chivalrous. Open doors for your human, let them go first, stand up when they enter the room._

_B: Woo your human by serenading them with romantic and old-fashioned love songs, such as songs by Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, or other famous human composers. _The Doctor choked on a laugh at that one.

_C: Set the romantic mood by spontaneously reading your human a love poem._

The Doctor groaned, looking at his library _full _of books. Finding a love poem was going to take forever, because although he was fine with being chivalrous there was _no way _that he was going to serenade Rose.

"Rubbish at romance, me," he groused. "I'm going to have to do this later."

* * *

Three hours later, Rose was lying curled on the Doctor's bed, half-asleep, and staring up at the walls of his room. Papered all around the room were circles, beautiful patterns. She cocked her head, trying to make sense of it-

"What are you _aaa don't look at that!_" shouted the Doctor slightly madly, running into the room and attempting to remove every sheet of paper from the wall for all of two seconds before saying sheepishly, "Oh. I forgot. You can't read Gallifreyan. That's good then."

Rose stared. "Do you put your _diary _on the wall?"

"Sort of, yeah," said the Doctor weakly, collapsing onto the bed next to her. "Are you ready to go on an adventure?"

"'M too tired," Rose yawned in a cold response, turning away from him. "You n' Martha can just go n' do something together."

_Oh, I'm a complete and proper idiot,_ thought the Doctor ruefully. _How long would it have taken me to figure things out? _To Rose, however, he said gently, "That takes all the fun out of it, though, doesn't it, an adventure without Rose Tyler? It's like a banana split without the bananas. It's in the name, but the best part isn't there." _Did I just say that? I did not just say that. Why did I just say that?_

Rose didn't turn to face him, but there was a smile in her voice when she said sleepily, "Can we show Martha New New New New...lot of other News York tomorrow?"

"Course," the Doctor replied. "Rose-" She turned then, her eyes foggy with sleep, and as usual the sight of her being sleepy made him rather drowsy himself. He yawned involuntarily. "Rose, I'm really sorry."

"D'you even know for what, though?" she asked.

"_Yes. _I'm sorry that I didn't tell you that you are first in my book and always will be. I've already spent loads of time with you, and it's not like I'm just going to leave you and travel the stars with...with some girl who isn't you."

"That's Martha, _some girl who isn't me?_" Rose teased, and the Doctor smiled softly at the spark back in her eyes.

"Yeah. She's wonderful, but she's not my star companion."

"Did you say that to Sarah Jane?" Rose asked suddenly.

"What? No! You're-you're not like any of the-you're _beautiful_-did I say that out loud? You're smiling. Is that good? That's good, right? I need to shut up. I'm going to shut up right now. That's me, the Doctor, champion of shutting up," chattered the Doctor.

Rose was smiling broadly.

* * *

_dalekscybermencanarywharf_

"Doctor?"

_rosemyrosemyrosestayswithme_

"Doctor!"

_voiddangerfallingROSE!_

"I'm here, love, it's okay! You're okay, you're okay."

The Doctor jerked awake, sweat on his brow, the image of Rose falling into the void burned into his eyelids. He was shaking, but he was also encircled in a protective embrace, and someone was smoothing his hair.

"That's it, sweetheart," said Rose softly. "Just a bad dream, that's all it was. You're safe."

"_You're _safe," mumbled the Doctor. The blankets were tangled around both of them and he couldn't seem to stop the frantic pounding of his hearts. "I lost you. I thought you were gone again."

Rose evidently thought that he was still half-asleep and talking nonsense. _No to the first part, Rose, but yes to the second. _She surprised both of them by pulling him a bit closer and lightly kissing his forehead.

"There, love," she said softly.

He hadn't had a nightmare since Canary Wharf, but they always came when they least expected them. And now here he was disturbing Rose's much-needed rest. A wave of self-loathing that was unreasonably large (but then he was drowsy and scared and he wasn't thinking quite straight) washed over him.

"'M sorry," the Doctor mumbled. "Woke you up."

"Can't help nightmares," Rose told him gently in response, taking both of his hands in one of hers. His pulses were beginning to slow, and she noticed this and made an attempt to move away-

"No!" he gasped desperately, clinging to Rose, all the pain of losing her back in Canary Wharf hitting him all over again. "Can't let you go, Rose."

Rose let him snuggle into her. It was really a rather pleasant change, being the cuddlee instead of the cuddler.

"Thank you," he whispered timidly, feeling not at all like himself. Time Lords were supposed to be strong, and brave, and-

"You don't have to pretend that you don't feel, Doctor," said Rose gently. "You couldn't be my mate if you were heartless, you know. I couldn't l-" Here she stopped, and even in the dark he could tell that she was blushing.

"I really, really like you, Rose," he said sleepily, and then he realized distantly that he was kissing her. And the kiss wasn't passionate and rough, but gentle and soft and warm and nice. Sort of like Rose, actually. And it was really ridiculous how cuddly she was-almost inhumanly so.

"Think you're an alien," he mumbled softly, pulling away. "You're too soft to be real." Rose laughed sleepily and yawned, and the Doctor realized that there was a high probability that she wouldn't remember this kiss in the morning. When one is woken abruptly in the middle of the night, one doesn't normally remember what goes on then.

So it would probably be okay if he kissed her again.

Rose didn't seem to mind. Instead, she moved down a bit so that she was snuggling into him, her knees pressing against his own, her hands on his shoulders. His mouth traced hers, then moved to her chin and that soft spot underneath it and her collarbone-

Rose pushed him away, gently, and at first horrible worry and self-hatred crushed the Doctor, but then she was kissing his cheek and then his lips, soft little kisses that lasted only a second before she pulled away and came back to kiss him again.

He may or may not have fallen asleep like that, in wonderful bliss, kissing her and kissing her and kissing her and

* * *

"Doctor?" mumbled Rose softly as soon as she woke up. Contrary to the Doctor's expectations, she remembered _everything. _All of the amazing events that had transpired between them were remembered with joy, and if she closed her eyes she was back in the dark of night with the Doctor pressing his lips softly to hers.

The Doctor blinked sleepily awake. "Mmm?"

"Did you have...any nightmares?" she asked shyly, expecting his lips to find hers again, expecting the wonderful feeling of being in his arms and holding him in hers.

He shifted to smile sleepily at her, and her heart leaped with anticipation. But then it sank again, as he spoke five simple words that made her absolutely certain that all of her happiness had simply been a dream.

"None. Why do you ask?"

* * *

**Gridlock begins ASAP!**

**Question: How do you feel about River?**


End file.
